


A Necessary End

by 221b_hound



Series: Star-crossed [12]
Category: Richard III - Shakespeare, Sherlock (TV), Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Anal Sex, Canonical Character Death, Dream Sex, Flowers, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Hair Kink, M/M, Multiple Crossovers, Outdoor Sex, Peace, Redemption, Regret, Reincarnation, Rimming, Shakespearean style language, Shower Sex, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-13 01:54:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4503303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and John are caught up in time, when Khan's sister Zenobia seeks her brother's aid. Khan-in-Sherlock must confront the demons of his past, as Richard-in-John has already confronted his. Will he find a way to make better choices this time, and can he convince Zenobia to do the same?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I will add further tags as chapters go up, though I only expect this to be 2-3 chapters long.
> 
> The title comes from Julius Caesar, when Caesar says:
> 
> _“Cowards die many times before their deaths;_  
>  _The valiant never taste of death but once._  
>  _Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,_  
>  _It seems to me most strange that men should fear;_  
>  _Seeing that death, a necessary end,_  
>  _Will come when it will come.”_

The greatest challenge to Sherlock Holmes’s prodigious mind came when he had to accept not only that he had a soul, but that his own and that of his esteemed John Watson were much, much older than their bodies. It was as much a challenge to then accept that his soul and John’s were bound together through time and even space, and had sought one another over centuries with unflinching, unfailing devotion.

Once presented with the evidence, Sherlock had – by dint of his own methodologies – to accept the highly improbable notion of a spiritual realm – and of a malleable temporal one – as _fact_. However, these philosophies rarely impinged on his work and could safely be ignored for the most part.

Thus it was that when circumstances conspired to snatch him and his beloved from their present lives and transport them to the future, the whole remarkable incident was seen as less _unsettling_ and more simply _inconvenient_ than it might otherwise have been.

*

It began with two lightning strikes upon the London Eye – or so they were reported to be at the time. A sole blaze of light began the sequence of events, and a tall, beautiful woman was seen to emerge from the corona, unblemished by the crackling electricity. Fifteen minutes later, another vivid and much larger lightning strike that was nothing of the kind created a blinding field of energy near the Thames. Four people – a man and a woman in red shirts, a man in gold, another in blue – stepped from that white light inferno to use what appeared to be tiny but extraordinarily powerful flip-top iPhones to track the woman.

They found her at a venerable hospital, St Bartholemew’s in Smithfield, where she had used an even stranger hand-held device to track quarry of her own.

Then things got interesting, in the least comfortable meaning of that word.

Sherlock Holmes and John Watson were leaving the hospital at a run, Sherlock having heard about the strange weather events at the Eye and determined to investigate for himself, and John to have a care for Sherlock’s safety when his curiosity made him forget to have that care for himself.

They ran into the square bounded by the hospital and its museum wing to find a woman pointing her device at them.

‘Khan?’ she asked, doubtful, and she glared frowningly at her device, as though it were deficient.

‘Hardly,’ responded Sherlock Holmes impatiently, though he was instantly wary.

‘You bear some of his genetic signal, and his quantum trace about your psychic field, but the rest of it is all wrong.’ She looked about, her countenance pale and strange, and scowled. ‘The bearings are off. I’m hundreds of years late. This was supposed to find you in that first time-trip you took, when we lost you for ten days in this miserable planet’s past.’

She peered hard at him then, and Sherlock realised that the strangeness in her eyes was that they were pitch black, admitting of no white or iris.

'My mind detects my brother's psychic signature within you. He is evolved, but he may yet save us.'

As she spoke, the four people in the coloured uniforms ran into the square. Four things then occurred.

The beautiful woman ran towards Sherlock Holmes, a hand outstretched to snatch at him. John Watson, naturally, ran to intercept her, but was not able to hold her back – her strength being unnatural and profound – as she lay her hand on Sherlock's brow and cried, _'Remember who you were!_ '

The man in gold shouted, ‘Khan? What the hell?!’ in alarm, and also launched himself at the melee, slapping a queer metallic object into the middle of the woman’s back.

The two people in red ran into the knot of Captain, prisoner and civilians in an attempt to separate them.

The man in blue saw weapons and dangerous enemies and said sharply into a brooch on his chest, ‘Uhura, beam us back, _now_!’

A bright white light crackled around the tussling group and the man in blue.

And all seven of them vanished from London physically and the 21st century temporally, in the midst of that dry and crisply cold autumn day.

*

When the atoms of those seven people reassembled several thousands of kilometres and some hundreds of years hence (through a wormhole held open only through great skill on the engineer’s part), they fell in a tumble. Instantly, more people in red converged on the beautiful woman, clamping her wrists together with peculiar devices. As they marched her away, she stared over her shoulder in dismay at the man she had taken for Khan, who lay in a crumpled daze on the floor.

The man who looked like Khan, dizzy and disoriented, felt warm hands upon him.

‘Sherlock? Are you all right? Can you hear me? Can you open your eyes? Good, good...’ John took Sherlock’s wrist in his hand, and Sherlock held to John’s forearm, clutching to him as an anchor. Sherlock’s eyes were open but they could not focus.

He closed them, and the world fell silent for a space.

*

When next he was aware of sound and light, the voice he loved, gruff with anger and impatience, was snarling, ‘You try to put those cuffs on him, I swear to god I will make you fucking _eat_ them.’

‘This man is a dangerous criminal.’

‘This man is _Sherlock Holmes_.’

‘This man is my _patient_ ,’ came another voice, almost familiar, and as gruff as the first, ‘He’s currently weak as a kitten and his life signs are as human as yours or mine, Jim.’

His eyes closed again and once more all was silence.

*

His next awakening found him lying on a warm surface that was moulded to support his shape. The hum of medical machinery was soothing-soft around him. Again, that beloved voice was the sound that summoned him out of darkness.

‘Sherlock, can you hear me? Squeeze my hand. That’s it. Now look at me…’ Some movement beyond the periphery of his senses made his love react. ‘Back off, Kirk. I don’t give a flying fuck if you’re the Jedi Emperor of the goddamned Universe. He’s a patient under my medical care. He’s not a fucking time bomb. _Get that thing out of his face_.’

And that other gruff voice added, ‘I won’t have phasers in my sick bay. I told you, whoever he looks like, this isn’t Khan.’

‘Richard, where is my sister?’ he asked, slurring as he woke, ‘What has she done to me?’

He opened his eyes, but they fell not upon the face of his prince, but on those of his long-dead enemies – as the body he’d worn when he knew them was itself long turned to dust. His expression shifted rapidly through confusion, through anger, through relief and sorrow and confusion again. When he spoke it was with soft despair, nightmare-rattled.

‘No. No. This cannot be so. I am done with this life. I have done my penance.’ He looked with dread at those enemies of old, who seemed advanced in years but as fresh in enmity as before. ‘I died in pieces over long decades, alone and in suffering, again and again and again. I went mad and felt my body die cell by cell, moment by moment, as though each tiny death was fully felt in recompense for every life I took. I suffered each vicious deed in the gradual loss of myself. I _cannot_ be here still.’

His voice was cracked with grief and with unaccustomed fear as he tried to lurch away from this living nightmare, but his body was too weak. When arms encircled him, he leaned into the embrace of a body and breath as familiar to him as his own. ‘Is this you Richard, or my dream of you? Am I mad? Richard, oh my Richard, do not forsake me.’

‘Sshhh, it’s all right,’ said the voice he trusted more than his own, as strong arms cradled him, ‘I think that woman did something to you, Sherlock.’ A pause, and winter pale eyes met gold-flecked blue. ‘Oh. It isn’t Sherlock, is it?’

‘Say I am not mad, my Prince, nor entombed once more in my living coffin, and I will believe you,’ whispered Khan.

His love’s hand cupped his face, and cherished his skin with soft brushes of his thumb. ‘You’re here, with me. Alive and awake. I don’t know exactly what’s happened, but I think we’re in the future. A woman with black eyes did something to you, and she woke Khan up in you. They’ve taken her off to the brig, as far as I can tell. You’re not mad – well, not unless we both are.’

‘Richard?’ Khan whispered.

‘John,’ was the reply.

‘John,’ murmured Khan, satisfied, ‘That noble name which I once wore as a deception only, and never so nobly as you. I will forgo utterly the name John Harrison, whose deeds became my second shame, and be only your Khan.’ Khan shivered and held tight to John, his body weak and his mind still in confusion, except for this one fact. His eternal love held him and was real. All else would become known in time.

‘You _are_ Khan,’ accused the man in gold.

Khan regarded his erstwhile adversaries from the shelter of John’s arms. The two men who glared at him as though he were a venomous and hateful thing made him flinch and become defiant, both.

‘I am not the Khan you knew,’ he said, John’s arm around his shoulder. ‘That tyrant is dead, and has been for hundreds of this soul’s lives.’

‘Well _now_ it’s getting weird,’ said the gruff man whom Khan knew as McCoy.

The man in blue waved an instrument at him, and frowned. ‘This man is not Khan Noonien Singh.’

‘I’ve been _telling_ you that,’ said McCoy, annoyed.

The man in gold peered intently at them. ‘You sure, Spock? He sure looks like that sonofabitch.’

‘Quite certain, Captain Kirk. Doctor McCoy is correct in his diagnosis. This man’s genetic signature and that of his companion are both very clearly human. Unenhanced, early 21st century specimens but predating the Eugenics experiments that resulted in the creation of Khan and his siblings.’ He looked up from the humming device in his hand. ‘And yet you speak as though you were Khan.’

‘This is Sherlock Holmes,’ declared John Watson, prompting the double-raising of the very pointed eyebrows of the one called Spock. ‘I’m…’

‘Doctor John Watson,’ Spock nodded, ‘Holmes’s chronicler, life companion and partner in the field of detection. The heroes of the…’ He fell suddenly silent. ‘But those events have not yet occurred in your time stream.’ He cocked his head at Khan. ‘And yet you admit that you are Khan.’

‘I was,’ said Khan softly, ‘In a life long past.’

‘So you’re, what… possessed?’ demanded Kirk sneeringly.

‘My soul is reincarnated, and this is my current life. I was reborn as Sherlock, but my sister Zenobia, on seeing me, has used her powers to awaken my older self. But I am not, as I told you, that Khan whom you knew.’

‘And you think that makes it all right?’ bristled Kirk.

‘I…’ at a loss, Khan turned to John, his noble face etched deep with sorrow and remorse. ‘I am…that Khan, their enemy, and am not. But those sins were mine.’

‘Not any more,’ John told him, ‘You’re Sherlock now. You grew beyond your past, as I grew beyond mine.’

‘Yet that past belongs to me. I transgressed beyond all bounds, my heart. The wretch I was is so far steeped in blood I know not how to offer apology to those who deserve it and have no call to accept the smallest part of my remorse. How do I begin to make amends for bloody acts too deep and terrible for any amends to satisfy them? Why would they by any account accept such an attempt?’

John stroked Khan’s cheek and pressed his brow to Khan’s and said, ‘I don’t know either. Richard… we…I think… it’s not a matter of what they can accept, or whether you can make up for all of it. All we can do is try. To be sincere and make the offer anyway, and keep on trying to do better. It’s all we have.’

Khan turned then to look upon the enemies who had been nobler and wiser and stronger than he. He summoned all of his considerable courage and tried to do the bravest thing he had ever been called upon to do.

‘There are no amends I can make for the blood I spilled, or for the cruelty of my actions.’ He placed his open palm upon his chest. ‘My soul here resides, having first gone mad and then my body blasted to dust when I was indeed Khan, before returning in life upon life upon life to suffer and die and be purged of my deeds. The purging was arduous, bloody and terrible. And yes, _necessary_. The suffering which I endured cannot be enough to balance my deeds, this I know. I do not ask for forgiveness. How can there be any? I can only say – I know that I have sinned, and sinned much, and I seek my redemption. My prince, my Richard, whom you see here as John, lights this way for me, so that I may choose a better path in this new life. And thus… I am sorry for my sins, though I know not how to be clean of them. Yet I try. Over countless lives, I have tried.’

This speech was met with silence. Khan bowed his head, and felt John’s hand upon his back, reassuring and kind where he knew he deserved not such love, and yet was grateful for it.

‘Well…’ said Captain Kirk, for there is no easy place to go with speech after such declarations. He and his First Officer regarded the winter pale eyes of the monster that they once knew and were puzzled, for no monster looked back at them, although the shape of him lay somewhere beneath the surface.

And then Khan recalled another debt he owed these men. ‘I.. I must give you thanks,’ he said.

Kirk’s jaw tightened in confused anger.

Spock’s brow furrowed. ‘For what do you thank us?’ he asked.

Khan met their unhappy, distrustful gazes.

‘For having honour, where I had none,’ he said earnestly, ‘For sparing my family, despite my treachery. I was bent on murder and revenge, and where I spurred rage in you, you chose a nobler course. I died in grieving madness, thinking my kin were slain, but in that mist-drenched antechamber where I awaited my next life, and saw my beloved Richard once more, I learned that my brothers and sisters had survived by your mercy. I wish I had known you were capable of honour and grace. I wish I had not been consumed by hatred, that I too might have been so capable. I…’ And here, those winter eyes became clouded and filled with dark sorrow. ‘I… regret…I… I….’

Once more, he looked to John. ‘I did not appreciate before how hard it was for you, when you met Elizabeth Woodville in the person of my brother. This is worse even than dying slowly over long decades and feeling every moment of my death. How did you have the courage for it? Why did you not simply flee rather than face her?’

‘You were with me,’ said John, ‘And you gave me strength.’ And John kissed his brow.

Khan sighed and sank into John’s embrace, before straightening his neck and back once more, to meet those eyes that could not accuse him half so much as did his own conscience.

‘Well,’ said McCoy in his definite, practical way, ‘If you really are the reincarnationof Khan Noonien Singh in the body of Sherlock Holmes, I’d say that thing you and John Watson did – that Spock’s giving me the evil eye about mentioning because you haven’t done it yet – makes up for it a bit. Don’t you Jim?’

Captain Kirk sighed. ‘I guess it does.’ Then his expression hardened. ‘But Khan’s sister Zenobia is a whole other problem.’

*

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crew of the Enterprise is wary of a human who looks like Khan Noonien Singh, and claims to be the reformed soul of that brute. John Watson longs to see his Sherlock in the eyes of that older soul. And Khan's sister Zenobia, whose recent history shows that in this, at least, she may be more sinned against than sinning, is angry that her brother would plight his troth to a mere human than commit to doing anything he must to save his family.

A woman in red remained outside the door of the medical bay, armed and wary of the men within. _If you must fire, do so only on stun_ , she was told. _These men are important to history and must be returned to their time, once the current crisis has been dealt with._

Her Captain had withdrawn into conference with his First Officer and Ambassador Troi, here as the head of the contingent of Betazoids escorting their dangerous prisoner back to Echo Station, the facility from which she had escaped.

Within, John Watson watched the door hiss shut, separating him from the dazzling, disturbing world beyond it. Some of it felt familiar to him – the hierarchy of military structures, the clear flow of command and obedience, of purpose and a larger picture. That had once been his life, though with less colourful uniforms and more seeming-realistic technology. But it was not his life now, and this world was not his world – not now, nor for his older soul – and his responsibilities were both finite and clear.

John made himself stand aside as McCoy – who seemed both competent and non-aggressive, despite the attitudes of the rest of the crew and the strange instruments he used – monitored Sherlock’s health. Sherlock, in whom Khan was now dominant.

‘Do not be afeared, my love,’ said Khan-in-Sherlock softly. He reached for John’s hand, and John, smiling crookedly, took his hand and caressed the knuckles.

McCoy waved some instrument beside Sherlock’s temple. ‘The neurological disruption that knocked him out is clearing,’ said McCoy, gruff-reassuring, ‘Though there are still signs of neurological agitation. It reads like two separate brain signatures.’ He took a different instrument and pressed it to his patient’s neck.

The device hissed, Khan-in-Sherlock flinched and John snapped, ‘What the fuck?’ in a warning growl, reaching to knock McCoy’s hand away.

‘Keep your hands to yourself or you’re out of my sick bay,’ snapped McCoy in return.

‘What the fuck did you just do to him?’

‘I gave him a mild neurological sedative to calm the overactive synapses…’

‘ _What the actual fuck_? And the purpose of _that_ is…?’

‘The purpose of that is to restore my patient to good health. Listen, Doctor Watson, I’m sure as far as the barbarous 21st century is concerned, you’re a fine doctor, but here and now you’re no better than a witch doctor with a bag of feathers and bones…’

‘Terrific. And what kind of techno-quack are _you_? I’m his _doctor_ , and you’re giving him drugs without knowledge of his prior medical history!’

John’s rage abated only slightly when his love squeezed his wrist. ‘He means no harm, John.’

‘That doesn’t mean he isn’t _doing_ any.’

Khan-in-Sherlock looked to McCoy’s frowning countenance. He blinked at the banked fury he saw within the doctor’s brown eyes. Then McCoy’s anger dissipated.

‘I know you’re not Khan. _That_ Khan. We’ve confirmed that his body is still stored in the cryogenic tube at the prison facility. Your body – this body – is human. You can’t possibly be that butcher.’

Khan-in-Sherlock did not address the unspoken truth of his enduring spirit, and instead said, ‘John Watson is indeed my physician, as well as my… life companion.’ His mouth pursed over the term Spock had employed. ‘His knowledge of this body is intimate and thorough. In the absence of medical records he can tell you my entire medical history, from my resting heart rate to the taste of my ejaculate.’

McCoy expression froze into complete professional neutrality, and so did John’s, though his resolved moments after into a sudden choking laugh.

‘Well, that at least is pure Sherlock,’ he said, and petted Khan’s head, fingers rubbing his scalp through the curly hair that still felt strange to Khan, falling loose against his forehead. 

Khan met John’s concerned-relieved eyes, and spoke gently. ‘Your Sherlock is here, John. We are here. I am here. Whatever Zenobia has done, and though it is unlike the drug that has brought me forth before, my Sherlock self is aware. He is… I am… watching everything. 

‘I’ll bet he is,’ said John. His fond smile was tinged still with worry. ‘Is there anything I should be aware of, to tell McCoy here?’

‘Though I recall only a fraction of the technology from this life, I do not think the synaptic inhibitor he employed can harm me, nor prevent Sherlock’s reawakening, if Zenobia will agree to restore me.’

‘Yeah. Well.’ John petted Sherlock’s scalp through the curls again, and kept his fears to himself.

McCoy considered them both before holding up the offending device in his palm so that John could see it. ‘Right, so, this reading here shows his synaptic activity, before and after. Only a small adjustment, but I wanted to ensure the dizziness and disorientation he kept experiencing had passed. I can't speak for any reincarnation ballyhoo, but I know synaptic distress when I see it.’

John picked up the instrument and examined it, comparing the readings, then turned the item in his palm to see where the small dose had been released into Sherlock’s bloodstream. He nodded and regarded McCoy part way between apology and defiance.

‘I know the idea of reincarnation sounds ludicrous,’ he said, ‘But Sherlock and I… Khan and I… we’ve had some very strange experiences in the last year. The woman who cornered us at Bart’s – she told him to _remember_ and then he collapsed, just as you lot showed up and brought us… wherever here is.’

‘USS Enterprise, Stardate 2265,’ offered McCoy, ‘And reincarnation’s a new one on me, but not time travel, and not alternative dimensions. We’ve had a strange few years ourselves. In any case, the Betazoid legation on board confirm that Sherlock Holmes, or Khan Noonien Singh, really is an old soul in a new body, even if he’s from a past time period.’ McCoy scrunched his nose in disgust. ‘What do I know about it? I’m a doctor, not a telepath.’

‘Tell me about it,’ sighed John, ‘And, ah… what’s a Betazoid?’

And so McCoy explained about the psychic humanoids accompanying the Enterprise on her mission to find and retrieve the renegade war criminal, Zenobia. Zenobia had been freed from her prison, for reasons unknown, by one Professor Aroya. Zenobia had then escaped, seeking to travel back in time to find her brother Khan, whom she was convinced would be found in medieval-era Earth.

‘I must see my sister,’ said Khan, his tone made of steel and of disquiet. ‘Now that my mind has cleared, I remember moments from our sudden, brief contact. When she brought me forth, her mind was… troubled.’

‘Yeah, I’ll bet.’

Khan-in-Sherlock scowled at McCoy. ‘This is no joke. My siblings exist in a living death inside their cryogenic coffins. For all that we gave you little choice in our fate, if the glimpses I saw of Zenobia’s fears are true when our minds communed, I do not believe that you would condone those things she fears. If you would, you are not the men of honour I learned to perceive you to be.’

‘What things?’ demanded McCoy.

Khan told him.

McCoy called for Captain Kirk and Ambassador Troi.

*

Kirk, Spock, Uhura and McCoy met, with their two unexpected 21st century passengers in attendance, for this matter touched on their lives in unusual ways. Khan shared the images imprinted upon him by his sister's frantic mind. The Captain listened, sceptical but apprehensive.

Khan-in-Sherlock ignored the distrustful and unpleasant looks the crew of the Enterprise bent upon him, his will and care all for the woman who had forced his older soul to awakening, when it was not for the staunch and protective man at his side.

Lwaxana Troi, the strongest of the Betazoid telepaths sent to restrain Zenobia, came to the meeting with information gleaned from the period of communion they had attempted with the deadly renegade. Examination of Zenobia’s records and their interview with her as she raged and wept in her cell had proven a number of things.

Zenobia’s genetic scan revealed Betazoid genetic material interwoven with the human cells and manipulated DNA which had produced her and her deadly kin. She was the only one known to exhibit psychic skills, and her reputation during the Eugenics wars was as the least vindictive of her kind.

Ambassador Troi then proceeded to share intelligence which supported the terrible things that Khan had seen in his sister's distressed mind  

Professor Aroya, Zenobia claimed, had in error or poor luck roused Zenobia from her death-like sleep while drawing large quantities of blood from Zenobia’s veins.

Professor Aroya, Zenobia claimed, was a cruel and ambitious creature, who on realising her error had filled Zenobia’s veins with poison and attempted to eject her body into space, not realising that Zenobia’s strength was great, and her determination greater. Zenobia had recovered sufficiently to escape Echo Station in a small vessel, and thence set about to find Khan in her own and Earth’s past, that he might help her avert their family’s fate.

Professor Aroya, Zenobia claimed, had already murdered three of Zenobia’s brothers and sisters by drawing their blood until none remained, so to use their life fluids in experiments to rejuvenate the elderly and even restore the dead to life, or worse, to simply sell that precious fluid to those who would pay the most for it.

Professor Aroya, Uhura broke in with news from the bridge, had abandoned her post, leaving three wizened husks within cryochambers behind her.

John's fists clenched. 'Khan's?'

'No,' said Uhura, with a glance at the human who looked like khan, 'His cryotube is intact.'

'It is not how I die, love,' Khan murmured to John.

John did not find this a comfort.

‘I must speak to my sister,’ insisted Khan.

‘Over my dead body,’ snarled Kirk.

‘Khan’s sister built a machine based on one that she says his family built before the Wars, and set about to retrieve Khan and recast the time stream,’ explained Troi, ‘She wanted to change history so that the wars would never happen.’ Troi lifted her head regally to Kirk and Spock, ‘And we have no doubt that she is telling the truth about her intentions. She wishes for peace.’

‘Ambassador Troi…’ began Kirk.

Troi turned back to the human man who called himself Khan. ‘Your sister has done no harm in her escape except in self defence, although certainly we are deeply concerned. She’s still very dangerous, even though you are not.’

Khan’s eyes crinkled in a subliminal smile that challenged such an assumption.

‘I believe it may aid us if you speak with her,’ said Troi.

‘Then take me to her.’

‘Not without me,’ insisted John.

And so, with an escort, these heroes of the 21st century were led to the prisoner.

*

John hesitated when he saw the woman, his heart filling with strange mixtures of dread and defiance, as though he knew her and the knowing was not good.

For her part, Zenobia looked at none but the human she had taken for Khan.

'My brother?'

'I am, and am not,' he said. 'Khan died long ago, but my spirit endures.'

'You must save us,' she said. 'They will kill us all, and though they may believe our lives worth less than dust, we cannot let that be. Turn back time. Warn your younger self and bring him forth. Change our fates!'

'Had I the means, I would not have the will,' said Khan, mournful but stern. 'That early self knows little but rage and revenge. And without Richard...'

'You do not require that trifling human cripple, for all that you remember him fondly for his piping courage.'

'My Richard's fate and mine are united. I cannot abandon him. I will not. My love for him is no fragile thing to wither and vanish. It endures, like the firmament in which even stars burn and die.'

Zenobia's eye turned at last on John, whose hand Khan had taken.

'Is this he? The one for whom you would forsake your family?' She sneered. 'Why, he's no better than a monkey.'

'Is this how you show your love to me?’ said Khan angrily. ‘I told Richard that my family would love him, if they but knew how deeply I did hold him in my heart. You cannot make me turn from him; only reveal yourself as shallow and mean-spirited, unworthy to love he whom I love as your new brother. Understand this, Zenobia. To forsake Richard is to abandon my self, and I will do neither.' His grey eyes flashed, and he did not see how the ship’s crew stared at him in amazement, nor how John looked on him with assured satisfaction, secure in the knowledge of this love.

'There is no changing time,’ continued Khan, ‘Do you think I had not considered such a path before, and often? Do you think I did not try, once I was free to make the attempt? I longed to find Richard, to free my family, to find safety, but the universe would not let it be so. The accident which brought me to Richard would not repeat, and the only early self I reached would not listen. Our past is set. We can move only forward, however we may.'

'Traitor,' snarled Zenobia and despite walls and restraints and telepathic escorts, her prodigious and powerful mind lashed out, enmeshing her perceived brother and his beloved human both.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zenobia attacks Khan and John in the realm of the mind - but she finds that her brother has a formidable defender, and she learns that her own soul has other memories too. What begins as punishment for perceived betrayal may yet end in hope.

In the realm of the mind, Khan cried out and fell to his knees, his hand still holding tight to John’s, and thus they both fell, crying out in pain, clasping each other, as Zenobia’s rage and despair tore at them, a wild tempest.

And yet they held on, crushing each other’s fingers, dream selves reflecting flesh selves, making double the pain, and they would not let go. Zenobia advanced upon them, and they would not let go. She, screaming, reached a claw-fingered hand, and _they would not let go_.

Until Zenobia – her dark eyes round and wild and washed with furious, grieving tears – made to claw her hands into Khan’s chest; for that sent John, who was Richard, who was countless other selves besides, into desperate action, and he launched himself, heedless of his own danger, between the siblings.

Zenobia, her severe beauty twisted into primal wrath, moving swift as lightning, dug her hand into John’s dream-self back, and through into Khan’s chest. She closed her fist beneath his unreal ribs, and pulled away again. Her hand was empty, but her work was done.

In front of her, in this misted kingdom of dreams, two men fell away into unfolding selves. John and Richard and all the selves they had been between those lives; Khan and Sherlock and likewise those lives he had lived. Older selves too, faded but present, from lives before they had bound their souls to each other as Richard and Khan. As a long line of facing mirrors, though the reflections bore different faces, different genders, different ages, all incarnations of those two men spilled across the dreamscape.

‘You would abandon us to die!’ Zenobia roared, ‘For love of someone so unworthy, you would let your brothers and sisters be enslaved, be cattle, be food, be _things_ , and slaughtered at our enemies’ will. Khan, my brother, how can you let us be destroyed? We are your _family_. _We are all that you have_!’

She raised her fists and stepped towards them again, preparing to rend each iteration of her brother to shreds and shards in payment for his betrayal.

As she did, each and every iteration of her brother’s lover found a reflection of Khan, and shielded it. Although only Richard and Khan, only John and Sherlock, had met in life – for all other meetings of their long journey towards each other had only been in the brief unbodied moments between lives – yet each Richard/John found a Khan/Sherlock and upheld his promise. He would be sword and shield in his Khan’s defence, no matter the life, no matter the cost.

The part of Richard/John that had been a mother in one life knelt and shielded two child-Khans who had not lived to adulthood, presenting her defenceless back to the woman who would destroy them. The small boy who had died crying for his granny in the Blitz stood firm in front of a bent old woman, little arms spread wide, and tilted a defiant glare up at Zenobia. So many lives he had lived, and in each of them, that spirit of king and doctor and soldier stood between the many spirits of his love and the harm that threatened him.

John Watson, armed with nothing but his two fists, stood before the collapsed form of his gasping, cursing Sherlock, and threatened with nothing but his blazing blue eyes that he would do her damage if she took one step nearer; if she did not desist.

Richard, armed now with a sword, stood angry-defiant in defence of the Khan figure that struggled to rise under the onslaught of his sister’s fury, which hurt him before she even touched him. But more. Richard knew now that he knew Zenobia – her long face and noble brow, her haughty cheekbones and trembling lashes and eyes a window to a soul bearing more grief than could be borne.

‘My lady, stop!’ He gripped the sword in his left hand and brandished it.

‘Out of my way, you toad.’

‘I shall not move, for I swore – and I swore to _you_ , my Queen, that I would defend your brother to the last of my breath and till the end of time. I swore to you that I would die rather than allow him hurt. I swore to you that I would cut mine own throat if e’er I myself were a danger to him.’

‘When did you swear such things to me?’

‘My Queen,’ said Richard darkly, ‘I swore it so when you were his brother in another life. And though it was not so sworn then, if you are the danger that threatens harm to him we love, then my swearing does not falter. I will slay thee to protect him if I must. I have taken much from thee, Elizabeth. Do not make me be thy murderer too, for I will do it. To protect him, I will do it.’

Zenobia’s steps ceased as she stood before the twisted man, whose right arm hung useless, whose spine hunched, but whose eyes and brow were clear and firm and determined.

She looked from Richard, to John, who stood shoulder to shoulder with this other self of his. The two warriors exchanged the briefest glance, and their stances shifted subtly. A wall, then, of two, against her.

Along the line, the other selves of John/Richard joined them. Shoulder to shoulder. A wall of righteous love to defend against righteous anger.

‘No,’ said Zenobia, a broken hush rather than a roar, and before their eyes, she too fell away, a stream of older selves flowing behind her, among them the scientist who was among the first to make her brother’s body, among them Mycroft Holmes, among them Elizabeth Woodville. ‘I must protect my family,’ whispered all her broken selves, ‘I must keep them from harm. I must save them. They are being murdered yet. My sisters Cixi and Catherine, my brother Alexander, were bled to death to feed another’s thirst.’

‘We will find a way to save them, sister.’ Khan rose to his feet, Sherlock beside him – and all their other selves so rose – and he reached out to squeeze his sister’s hand. ‘We cannot save them with further treachery and violence. I cannot save us by betraying Richard.’

‘Then how?’ all her selves cried out, Elizabeth most loudly of all, ‘How do I save my husband and my children and my brothers now? Oh, how do I save all that I love? For they slip through my fingers, bloodied and ruined. My family, my sisters and brothers, my children, oh my children!’

‘Not every life,’ said the reflection of Mycroft Holmes softly. He took Elizabeth’s hand, and she gazed at where their fingers entwined. Mycroft spoke again. ‘John and Richard keep their promise. Our brother does not come to harm in the life I know. He is sword and shield, as he swore to me. To _us_.’ Mycroft kissed Elizabeth’s cheek and her gaunt face brightened, for she remembered it was so. There was a life in which her enemy protected her heart from harm, and so became her ally.

Mycroft smiled at her, encouraging-soft, and led the queen to Zenobia’s side. There, they stood with her, shoulder to shoulder. The memory of Mycroft regarded the John and Richard selves. Elizabeth took Zenobia’s hand, and they both, and Mycroft, all one spirit, united now in purpose, looked to those two men.

‘What do I do? How do I do it?’ Zenobia asked.

Khan cupped her wan cheek in his hand. ‘Zenobia. My sister. There is no success in slaughter. We have no victory there, only death for ourselves and all that we love. I have learned that I cannot burn my way to peace, except by burning the corruption in my own self, so that from those ashes, wildflowers may grow.’

‘And your soul…grows flowers now?’ She tried to mock, but instead her hope stretched towards him.

Khan smiled. ‘Aye. A garden, the seeds blown into the graveyard of my heart, planted there and nurtured, all by my Richard’s hand, a gift of growing from my Gloucester, my prince.’

Tears spilled from Zenobia’s eyes (and from Elizabeth’s, and from Mycroft’s, and from the eyes all the others who saw this testimony).

‘We fought to be freed of slavery, and so became the enemy, our own most of all,’ Khan told her. Behind him, Sherlock reached for John’s hand (and along that wall of righteous love, all that mirrored length of souls reached for one another).

‘I sowed brutality and reaped grief,’ Khan continued, ‘But my love redeemed me.’ He smiled his tender regard at Richard, whose own battle-hard eyes had softened once more, and he gazed with burning adoration at his Khan. ‘My Richard planted in me a seed, which we watered with our sorrow, and it grew into a flower, thence into a field of colour and life. He grew love in that barren field within me.’

‘Aye,’ agreed Richard, holding hard onto Khan’s hand, ‘And he within me, whom had never known a kind yet unpitying touch until he held me.’ He turned to face Zenobia. ‘We were envenomed things, my love and I, blasting all we touched into ruin, but died and died and died again, so that we may grow towards each other. Now we are no longer adders, but the twinned serpents of the caduceus, the promise of healing. We will find another way to save your family, my lady. We will do it together. Thee and we.’ He held out his good hand to her.

Zenobia stared at the swordless hand of the cripple who was king of her brother’s heart. Who had been her most hated enemy, and now was her most loyal friend, who protected whom she loved when she had forgot herself, and threatened him harm.

She took his hand.

‘I want to be free,’ she tremulous whispered. ‘Show me how to be free. I yearn for better things.’

And aye, she longed for freedom from fear (and from being feared), for a future full of green, growing joys.

These hopes she could have never raised to the first Khan she knew, for he would not have understood. But this time- and love-tempered soul might, with his beloved and loyal Richard, who she understood at last to be fully worthy of her brother’s unwavering and mighty regard.

‘First we must return to the world,’ said Khan, softly wiping the tears from her cheeks with his thumb.

‘Yes,’ said Sherlock, ‘Before they declare the lot of us dead and shove us into those cryogenic tubes you’re so worried about. We won’t be saving anyone then.’

John cocked an eyebrow at him, as much to say “timing!” as “stay with me”.

Zenobia stood away from them, all of her older selves folding away, folding in, until she was whole again.

Likewise, her brother and his love folded inward.

But she chose who, for now, would remain uppermost. She chose the men she remembered best, and knew best.

She chose, for her champions, Khan and his Richard.

*

When each of the three opened their eyes again, the world was a kind of chaos, though controlled – a directed maelstrom.

Zenobia, locked still in her chamber, gasped and pressed her hand to the clear wall. ‘Khan! Richard! Say they are not hurt!’ she begged.

McCoy, bending over Khan while a colleague tended to John, ignored her. The two men’s hands were clasped still – attempts to make them release one another had failed. Now, however, they opened their eyes and brushed away the hands that sought to revive them.

Khan reached for John, to cup his jaw in one large hand. ‘Richard?’

‘Aye, love,’ said Richard in John’s form, ‘Zenobia hath brought me forth to be at thy side and defend thee still.’ He shrugged off the helping hands impatiently, and realised they had tried to aid him to his feet when his own right arm, remembering its former infirmity, would not do so.

He suffered none but Khan to raise him up, and they turned to their tormentor who had become their supplicant.

‘Please,’ said Zenobia to them, to all who would listen, her grief and remorse visible to the meanest intelligence and the hardest heart, ‘Please. Please save us, before any more of my siblings are slain. Save us from our own selves. We must no longer be tyrants or slaves, with no hope of anything in between. We must break this cycle of violence and death, of enslavement and revenge. We must break it and be free. Please. Please, show us how.’

Ambassador Lwaxana Troi stepped up to the glass and pressed her hand to it in mirror to Zenobia’s own.

‘If you are sincere,’ said the Betazoid, ‘Perhaps you will let my people and I show you how.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zenobia/Elizabeth Woodville is based on Gina McKee, who played Elizabeth in the Trafalgar Theatre production of Richard III, in which Martin Freeman played the Richard of this series.
> 
>  


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crew of the Enterprise must accept that two historical heroes are now men of bloodier history - and more, that these two reformed butchers aim now to broker peace with the warrior Zenobia. The Betazoids say that Zenobia is sincere in her desire for peace. If Kirk can find the courage to make it so, and if Khan can make his sister keep a vital promise, there may indeed be a better future for them all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've found writing the Trek side of this quite difficult. :/ I hope the characters aren't too off, and that the plot is making sense...

McCoy shook his head as he made his report to the Captain and First Officer.

‘Watson’s synaptic signature is, like Holmes’s was, split, though the difference in the two signatures is less marked. He’s insisting his name is Richard now, and seems to have lost the use of his right arm. There’s no medical reason for it, or for the way he’s hunching his back. He just says he’s Richard now, and…what was it?’ McCoy adopted an expression not unlike that of his patient along with a poor faux British accent. ‘I lived a life entire with these deformities, and though this body shares them not, yet when I am brought forth to remember me in this new flesh, it bears the marks of despis-ed Richard.’

He pronounced “despised” as three syllables, just as John (or Richard) had done.

‘And then,’ continued McCoy in tones most offended, ‘Holmes, or rather this new Khan, told him off, but kind of _sweetly_. He said, and I quote, “Fie, Richard.” I mean, who says “Fie?” He said...’ and now McCoy attempted to adopt Khan’s sonorous voice, ‘You are despised no longer, for I love you, and what was called deformed, I name simply my Richard, who is my lord and love, and whole unto me.’

McCoy scowled before continuing. ‘And then they made doe eyes at each other and called each other names that a stranger’s got no call to be listening to.’

‘And other than that?’ prompted Kirk.

‘Other than the fact that we accidentally brought Sherlock Holmes and Doctor John Watson out of their proper timeline, and now the both of them appear to be possessed by former versions of their souls, even though one of those souls comes from their own timeline’s future, and _that_ one was Khan Noonien Singh, and frankly the whole thing is crazier than a bucket full of frogs in a thunderstorm? Well, other than that, they’re both physically fine. I’ve had one of the Betazoid team take a look as well, and as far as they’re concerned, there’s no psychic damage either. They confirm that it’s Khan, as well. I’ve matched Holmes’s synaptic readings with those we have on file for Khan from that last time he was on the Enterprise. Damn near a perfect match.’

Spock nodded sagely. ‘All examinations tell us the same thing, Captain. These two men are perfectly healthy, and the personalities they are currently manifesting are truly aspects of their past lives, despite the twist in timelines that this obviously entails. Sherlock Holmes _is_ Khan Noonien Singh, although he is not the Khan we met. That Khan still lies within a cryogenic chamber at Echo Station.’

Kirk shook his head, unwilling to believe it. ‘People like that don’t change. They just die.’

‘To hear him tell it,’ said Spock, ‘That is exactly what he did, many times over.’

‘I find it hard to believe,’ insisted Kirk.

‘Maybe you should listen to the two of them waxing lyrical on how fabulous the other one is,’ said McCoy sourly, ‘They can go on forever about it, with all the flowery references to suns and moons and noble hearts and princely minds and what-all else. I tell you, Jim, if that really is the spirit of Khan in Sherlock Holmes’s body, he absolutely is _not_ the same man we knew. _This_ one holds hands with his boyfriend and tells him what a marvel he is.’

These deliberations were interrupted by the arrival of the ambassador, who brought grave and surprising intelligence.

‘Zenobia is absolutely genuine in her repentance,’ Ambassador Troi reported.

‘How can you be sure?’ Spock asked.

‘She willingly submitted to telepathic examination, and to all three of my team simultaneously. She is strong, certainly, but not strong enough to deceive all of us. For all her apparent power, Zenobia is still only part Betazoid, and could not have resisted the reading if she’d tried – which she didn’t. She’s telling the truth. Aroya has murdered three of her siblings so she could use their blood, and Zenobia escaped when Aroya tried to do the same to her. All of Zenobia’s actions since her escape have been to find a way to change the past and avoid the bloodshed that has come to pass. She has a genuine desire for peace. I believe that we may be able to offer her a path to that conclusion.’

‘And that is?’

‘Betazed will take her in, and her cryogenically suspended people will be relocated to a secure facility there, and guarded so that no others can exploit or harm them.’

An argument ensued, but the Ambassador reminded Captain Kirk that Zenobia, as a part Betazoid – although no-one knew how that had come to pass, since at the time of Zenobia’s creation, no Betazoids were known to have been on Earth – had been assigned to their jurisdiction. Given the failure of Echo Station to maintain the safety of the prisoners, the Federation had welcomed the Betazoid offer.

‘Is Zenobia volunteering to go back into stasis, then?’ asked Spock.

‘No. Zenobia has offered to work with our scientists to develop serums from her own blood that will provide treatments. She has other knowledge to share, as well. She says that if the new incarnation of her brother wills it so, then it shall be done. She wishes to speak with him.’

Captain Kirk pursed his lips and considered this strange and unsettling situation. His first reaction was disinclination to believe in such a change of heart. The violence of these people bred only more violence, surely?

But then he recalled that this had been Fleet Admiral Marcus’s philosophy – that change could not be made; that a threat of violence could only be met and extinguished by more violence. It was this ruinous scorched-world philosophy that had woken Khan in the first place, and brought about such devastation.

It was the philosophy of those who had created Khan and his people those hundreds of years past, building bodies that were meant for war alone, only to discover that those bodies contained people, contained _souls_. Then, fearing the weapons they had built, their makers had meant to slaughter their slave-soldiers, who naturally but too-bloodily rebelled.

Violence met with violence created only more death and bloodshed. And this was why Kirk and his crew had played their trick five years ago. They let Khan believe that his family was butchered, to drive him to his end – but of course they had not done so vile a thing.

Someone, after all, had to make the choice to break the chain. Someone had to be brave enough to try to do something better than the brutal choices that had come before. Kirk wasn’t sure that it would work, but Troi and the government of Betazed were willing to try. Zenobia, it seemed, was willing to try. If that man in the medical bay truly was a reborn Khan then he, too, seemed willing to find the courage and the humility to break the cycle and to forge a different path.

It was not Kirk’s decision, and he knew it – the Federation and Betazed had already decided. Now, Kirk he could either stand in the way and make this more difficult – or he could facilitate the first steps on a path to a brave new world.

‘If she can promise not to pull the same stunt as last time – and if you can hold her to it – we’ll bring the other two to meet her. All right?’

‘Yes, that is satisfactory,’ said Lwaxana Troi, with a graceful nod.

*

Richard was minutely examining the medical bay, his expression suffused with delight as Khan watched him, smiling at his Richard’s wonder at the world he now confronted. Everything Richard saw and smelled and heard was new and miraculous to him; everything was a morsel of the world he had never before shared with Khan. Therefore, every new thing was precious and astonishing.

Both men looked up as the door hissed open to admit Doctor McCoy, Captain Kirk and Spock. Richard peered at Spock, then marched up close to more clearly see.

‘Thou art a wonder,’ said Richard carefully, and with genuine awe, ‘So like and so unlike a man. Priests I have known would have pronounced thee “devil” and slain thee, as though devils could die like men. And yet…’ Richard stood back from Spock and met Spock’s relentlessly neutral gaze, ‘…and yet priests know little of Man or God or Satan. I was pronounced a devil at my very birth for less reason than thou wouldst bear that mantle, and only grew into my devilment later.’ Then he leaned forward, conspiratorially, and said, ‘There is something of my Sherlock in thee – a poise and watchful regard, perceiving the world clear-minded. This soul loves Sherlock as it loves Khan, and so I shall choose to like thee.’

Spock arched an eyebrow at him, but Richard only gave him a curt nod and went back to Khan’s side.

‘Your sister has asked to see you,’ said Captain Kirk, ‘And if you’re willing to agree, we’ll take you to her. There’s no obligation, seeing as she tried to kill you last time.’

‘Zenobia will not harm me,’ said Khan, ‘Nor Richard. She knows what we are, now.’

‘I still don’t know what that is,’ said Kirk, ‘Apart from a self-proclaimed reformed murderer I used to know and his boyfriend who seems to be a less assholey version of King Richard the Third.’ Or so Scotty had said, when the officers had discussed the matter earlier.

‘My prince was once a king, aye,’ agreed Khan.

‘But I forsook that undeserved title’ said Richard solemnly, ‘And am monarch of no realm now but my love’s heart, as is he of mine. Tis all I wish. Richard is but Richard, now.’

Khan caught up Richard’s good hand in his. ‘Aye and that is greatness and nobility and wonder enough for me, my glorious Duke of Gloucester – oh, stay, Richard, that is at least a title that belongs to you. You, Richard, are my lord, my defender, my comfort and my light. What monarch else can claim to be so great?’

‘What monarch ever was so conquered by the subject of his love, or so willing knelt at noble feet?’

‘See what I mean?’ grumbled McCoy. ‘Sappy for each other.’

‘Aye,’ agreed Richard, undisturbed by the accusation, ‘For Khan rendered a softness in my heart that had hardened in my infancy. He was the first to ever love me.’

Khan looked to Kirk, who was a sceptic still, despite his determination to seek change.

‘You wonder at the change in me,’ observed Khan, ‘And doubt that you can trust it. I cannot make you believe it, except to say, this man taught me love, with the fierceness of his heart. His courage is a blazing thing. We were monsters, he and I, and yet we found this hope in one another.’

Richard stood side by side with him. ‘I slew kith and kin; I murdered little children, who by all laws should have looked to me for succour and protection,’ he said, ‘And my love slew countless strangers, seeking vengeance. There is no measure to say whose deeds were blackest, whose reign most bloody and cruel. We were tyrants and a scourge to any that were good and true, and we died despairing, as we should. We have fought our natures and our curses in all the lives that followed to be better men, to be worth the love we swore. Perhaps our Sherlock and John selves should be here that you may trust to our intentions, and yet here are Khan and Richard brought forth to seek a peace.’

‘We are men whose sins and stains run deep,’ said Khan, ‘Our souls and hands, once steeped in the gore of innocents, are at your service, if any service you can make of them.’

Kirk looked at Khan. At Richard. At their two joined hands. ‘Let’s see what we can do, then,’ he said, ‘Let’s go see your sister.’

*

Zenobia breathed relief when she saw Khan and Richard, who were led into her cell by the Betazoid ambassador, the Captain and his First Officer, flanked by armed guards.

‘I did not hurt you, after all!’

‘No, sister.’ Khan embraced her, and when he released her, she reached her hand to Richard, who took and squeezed reassurance to her.

‘They say you will submit to the Betazoids and set an example to forge a peace,’ said Khan.

‘Yes,’ said Zenobia, ‘Or… I will. If you wish it so. You are our leader.’

‘I was a poor leader of our family, Zenobia,’ said Khan, in sorrow. ‘I led us to ruin.’

‘You tried to make us free.’

‘And we are not free. We became prisoners in living death, and three more of us are dust now, because of me.’

‘I will strive to build a trust, then,’ said Zenobia, ‘That one day I may wake you from your sleep, and our remaining brothers and sisters as well, and we will live again.’

Even before he registered Kirk’s alarm, Khan was shaking his head. ‘The others, perhaps, in measured steps. Bennelong I think will be persuaded to a peaceful choice, if choice was offered. Cleo, too, and Saladin. You will know how best to do it, and who to choose, and in what order, to build the best future. You are the leader now, Zenobia. Lead them. But do not free me. I must remain in my tomb.’

Richard squeezed his hand, hard, and Khan found solace and strength in that.

Zenobia tried to protest, but Khan stayed her arguments. ‘The Khan who speaks to you now has learned much over many lives. The one that lies in that cryochamber on Echo Station has not. He is made of wrath and poison. He cannot save anyone, not even himself. On no account must he be freed. My course is set.’

‘But…’

‘No, Zenobia. I choose my destiny.’ He raised Richard’s fingers to his lips and kissed them. He and Richard looked to each other, their love fierce-bright, tempered hard and unbreakable by pain and grief and knowledge. ‘I do not want to be what I was. If you wake me, I will destroy you. Us. Everything. You must promise me.’ Khan turned to Troi, to Kirk, to Spock. ‘You must promise. The Khan that lies entombed must remain there. He must never be released. Everything will be for nothing if I am freed. I was… he is… mad with grief. I can only be saved by accepting my fate, and I accept it with my whole heart. Promise me.’

Kirk nodded, and Spock. Troi, too. Khan turned back to Zenobia. ‘Promise me.’

‘I promise,’ she said, lifting her chin, noble in her understanding. ‘I will lead us to the life we hoped to have. I will protect us with peace instead of violence. I will strive to free us from slavery.’

‘And you will do it,’ said Khan, smiling at her, encouraging and full of love for his sister. ‘You were always the best of us. I should have listened to you when we were young and you counselled restraint and parley. I was such a fool. But you, Zenobia – you will do what I could not. You will save our family.’


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At Echo Station, Zenobia, Khan and Richard must all face challenges - Zenobia with the first test of her resolve to be a peacemaker; Khan and Richard with the realities of the original Khan in cryogenic suspension. Each thinks he understands and has accepted the knowledge of Khan's coming death. Each of them is wrong.

When the Enterprise reached Echo Station, Khan and Richard accompanied Captain Kirk and his away team to the transporter.

Richard examined everything with a curious eye. When he understood how they were to reach Echo Station, he frowned.

‘I do not understand this “beaming down”. The sun hath beams, and the moon, too, and though we paint each other as poems of those celestial orbs, Khan, that is surely not thy meaning. Dost thou mean we transform into suchlike beams of light to shine upon new shores?’

Scotty, at the controls, was wont to smile indulgently at such childlike understanding, but Khan nodded, knowing how his love rendered technologies undreamt of in his life into words oblique yet not devoid of comprehension.

‘That is almost the reckoning of it,’ Khan told him, ‘The machines here will change our flesh, this solid matter, into energy, and send it to our destination, there to reassemble our energy into matter once more.’

‘Ah.’ Richard nodded.

‘You understood that?’ Kirk asked, incredulous that such concepts would have meaning for a medieval king.

‘Aye,’ said Richard, ‘For I have been solid flesh become light when I died, many times over, and each time was my light made flesh again. Tis true, each time I was dead and then reborn a babe, with no memory of myself, and a new name. Yet it seems alike. Only, I do hope, not so inconvenient.’

Khan’s eyes shone, for he loved it when his Richard displayed the cool intelligence which grasped strange concepts so readily. ‘Tis not unlike,’ he said, ‘Only we will be made flesh again as our own selves still.’

‘Good,’ said Richard, and nodded sharply, and none but Khan could read his lingering apprehension. Khan stood near and pressed his brow to Richard’s and, reassured, Richard began to examine the transporter bay more minutely, as though inspecting the troops before battle.

Zenobia was brought to the transporter bay with manacles on her wrists, and a strange collar around her throat, to keep her terrifying power arrested. She submitted to the restraint with dignity, yet she looked a lion in chains, or like a dragon of myth, bound to obey where she would have done so of her own free will. She said nothing of the matter, but held her head proudly.

Ambassador Troi’s lips were pursed, although she did not voice a protest, knowing too well the reputation of this woman, for all the promises that had been made. Khan, too, held silent, though his expression was eloquent as a medium for his displeasure. He wanted to demand her freedom, yet knew his demand would mean little, for armed guards watched him as closely, even though he wore no shackles. He was mindful, too, of the bloody wrongs he had committed in this time, for which he was still remembered, even though the Khan who had done those deeds was long dead (and yet still here, in stasis on Echo Station). And so he was silent.

It was Richard who spoke their disquiet. ‘My lady’s chains are a fine beginning to a truce,’ he said, his laconic eye fixed to the manacles, ‘For what is trust if it cannot be enforced? I myself, when I was tyrant of all England, did shore up my allegiances in a very like manner. Though, for preference, I chose my allies’ children as their fetters, and swore that I would shed their infants’ golden blood if they did not prove my trust in them.’ Then he arched an eyebrow at Captain Kirk and challenged him to make reply.

Kirk regarded Richard thoughtfully. ‘You really were a bastard, weren’t you?’

‘Aye,’ agreed Richard, ‘And a rank villain, and never to be trusted except in chains, and never then. Do you think this lady is of my stamp?’

Kirk’s expression became then aggrieved, and then rueful, and then he said, ‘You’re a pain in the ass, Richard.’

‘Aye,’ said Richard again, ‘I am no longer a tyrant, but yet am I not a milksop. Tis too much to say I am a _good_ man.’

Unexpectedly, Kirk smiled. ‘I kind of like you. Both of you. You and John Watson, I mean.’ Before Richard could respond to that declaration, Kirk went to Zenobia and himself removed the collar and the manacles.

Zenobia rubbed her wrists and her throat, and tried not to feel grateful, although she was.

At her look, Kirk shrugged. ‘Trust has to start somewhere, right? And a chained ally isn’t an ally, like he said.’

‘My brother’s love is wise.’

‘Your brother’s love is an asshole,’ Kirk corrected her, ‘But yeah, he knows a thing or two.’

Richard, once more at Khan’s side, sly-smiled. ‘Do you hear, Khan? I am yet a knave.’ He seemed most pleased with the epithet.

‘A knave and a knight,’ Khan agreed, eyes likewise crinkling in sardonic humour, ‘And a most accomplished diplomat.’

They found Spock’s gaze upon them, assessing and not displeased with whatever judgement he thus made.

Soon after, Scotty made their bodies into light and beamed them into Echo Station, where they were made flesh again.

Richard flexed his good hand, and even the other which only forgot to be good, and looked around with studious approval.

‘You come from a time of miracles,’ he said to Khan, ‘Tis no wonder you were a miracle when you came to me in my young days.’

‘This is all commonplace to me,’ said Khan, ‘It was necessary for me to go to your time to find a miracle.’

‘Can you two quit it for just half a damn minute?” grumbled McCoy, who was of the away team's number.

‘We give the good doctor indigestion,’ laughed Khan, not caring what McCoy thought.

‘That good physician puts on a show, for he smiles when he thinks we see him not,’ replied Richard blithely, ‘Do we now go to bring your people to their new home?’

*

Aroya had been captured and was held in Echo Station’s brig, awaiting arraignment and then trial for her crimes. On hearing that Zenobia was on board, she wept in terror for fear of the judgement that enhanced warrior would bring to her.

When she learned that Khan Noonien Singh was with her, Aroya’s tears turned to curses and she raged. She had lost people whom she loved to his reign of terror.

Her guards now placed Professor Aroya in restraints, and took her from the brig to the transporter bay, so that she would be transferred to the Enterprise and taken to a civilian Federation base for her case. Crossing paths with her enemies was a careless error, unless it was that her guards had sympathy for her actions, and wanted an excuse to see if by confrontation she might in the end justify her deeds. For if that wretched bitch Zenobia attacked Aroya, then they might be justified in killing the bitch after all. Aroya was not the only one who had lost someone beloved.

So it was that Aroya and her guards came upon Zenobia, in the company of the Betazoid ambassador, Captain Kirk and Spock, and Khan and Richard, too.

Zenobia could not halt herself when she saw Aroya, and strode towards the woman, hands reaching for her, fingers curled, as though she would throttle the professor. Aroya flinched, and then she spat on the ground between them in defiance.

‘I should tear you limb from weakling limb for what you did to the sisters and brother that I loved,’ snarled Zenobia. Kirk and Spock had drawn their weapons, Kirk already regretting his optimistic mercy.

‘I should tear out your still-beating heart and _eat_ it in front of your dying eyes,’ continued Zenobia, her face contorted savagely. Then she glanced to her left, where Khan now stood, glaring rage at the pale but defiant Aroya; she looked to her right, where Richard stood, calm and solid as a cannon. She took a breath and stood tall.

‘But I have set aside revenge for hope. I cannot save my family by destroying you for the sake of those dear siblings you murdered. I will let your own laws deal with you, according to their own lights. I will spite you, Aroya, by learning mercy, which you did not grant my defenceless kin. Those who say cold blooded murder is a sin will know what best to do with you.’

Zenobia turned from her enemy then, Khan and Richard turning with her, and thus she passed the first test that her resolve for peace had brought her.

Kirk shrugged at Spock as the guards led Aroya to the transporter bay. Ambassador Troi, for her part, looked quite satisfied, as though Zenobia’s mindful courage to walk away reflected well on all Betazed.

*

Khan had been very quiet all this while, for although he had never seen Echo Station in that old life, he knew his body was here housed. In a room sequestered even from the rest of his kin, so feared was he, Khan Noonien Singh lay seemingly asleep in a cryogenic pod, his mind awake and screaming instead of buried deep in no-time, not-thought. If not yet, then soon, the malfunctioning pod would send him into greater madness than that in which he had lived, and in its own time – decades hence – it would finally let him die.

So yes. Khan was quiet. He was not afraid, precisely, although he was filled with apprehension.

 _I have lived this nightmare once,_ he kept thinking. _I am not living it again. I am here. I am sane. Richard is at my side._ Yet the echo of that suffering crawled along his nerves.

In the company of his sister, the ambassador and the Enterprise crew, he kept his back to the door that led to his own living tomb, and instead looked upon the cryogenic pods in which the remainder of his family lay sleeping. Those brothers and sisters he thought had been murdered by Kirk, who had instead been saved. Those dear brothers and sisters he had never thought to see again. His beloved kin whom he had failed, not once, but time and time again. Their death-like sleep was all he had achieved for them.

He stood among them all, and found his grieving for them was not done. He wept as Zenobia and McCoy walked from pod to pod, checking that each of them was well. Khan wept for what he had done to them.

He did not expect to find Kirk standing beside him.

‘I didn’t kill them,’ Kirk said, unnecessarily, ‘I would never have done that.’

‘Admiral Marcus would have done it,’ said Khan, ‘And had I been in your place, I would have done it.’

‘ _That_ Khan would have. _You_ wouldn’t have.’ Kirk almost surprised himself, with knowing it was true.

Khan drew a shuddering breath. ‘I… wish I had understood the kind of man you are,’ he said, ‘Yet I was then not the kind of man who _could_ understand. I would have taken your mercy for weakness.’ His face creased in sorrow again. ‘Thank you for sparing them. Thank you for this chance you grant Zenobia.’ He swallowed and finally turned to face his former enemy. ‘You… seemed… so fragile,’ he breathed in a kind of wonder. ‘So simple and so… small… to me. Then. But I was wrong. You are the opposite of all those things, and I was but a raving beast who thought it was a god.’ His tears, unchecked, fell down his cheeks and onto ground near the pod where his brother Bennelong lay.

‘Do you think Zenobia can make this work?’ asked Kirk. ‘Do you think she can change their minds, your brothers and sisters?’

‘She has the heart and will for it,’ Khan replied, ‘The Betazoids with her have the skill and strength to guide her, I think. She is stronger than I ever was. She can do it. I must believe that she can.’

Kirk frowned and then, with sudden decision, placed his hand on Khan’s shoulder and pressed firm reassurance into that very human body that housed a soul that had once been a superman. ‘We’ll do what we can to help.’

Khan swallowed, and nodded, all humility and gratitude – two things he had never felt in his other life, and had rarely felt for anyone but Richard and John. To feel them now for his enemy was strange, but also strangely welcome.

And then he frowned and looked about. ‘Where is Richard?’

Kirk’s head jerked up as he gazed about the chamber. ‘Spock, McCoy, either of you seen Richard?’

It was Zenobia who answered. ‘When we went to confirm Khan’s pod was functioning correctly, he came with us and asked to see it. He is with it now.’

Khan could not say why the notion alarmed him so, though curiosity made him ask, ‘The pod is functioning?’

‘Perfectly,’ said Zenobia, unaware that it should not be so, for Khan had not told her the whole story of how he died.

With rapid strides, Kirk, McCoy and Spock hard on his heels, Khan went to rescue ( _rescue?_ ) Richard from a vigil beside Khan's living tomb.

*

Richard had only wanted to see his Khan, asleep. The Khan whose body was the one he remembered from their first meeting in the glade. All he wanted, he had thought, was to see his face.

He had not expected the sight of his sleeping love to cut him so deep; to send him to his knees with grief at that pale countenance unmoving as though in death. The knowledge of what was yet to come within that unnatural sleep was a torment. If he could spare his Khan such grief, he would do so, and gladly, even if it meant that Khan would not return to him. Even if it meant losing his most beloved love, yet he would spare him.

But he could not. He did not know how. And Khan himself did not wish it. He had made the others promise to leave him in this coffin. Richard had made no such promise, but oh, oh, he did not know how to free his love. And so his love must lay entombed, and go silently mad until slow death finally took him, and his enemies scattered his atoms to burn in distant suns.

Richard, therefore, knelt by the tomb, and looked upon his first Khan’s face through the clear shield. He petted the shield as though it were his love’s own cheek, and he whispered to that so-still man, Richard's heart, within.

‘I love thee, I love thee,’ he told his Khan, not knowing if this Khan could hear him. ‘Hold fast to that truth, my prince of stars, oh my moonlit angel. When all else is lost to thee, know that I am waiting. Nay, more, I am searching for thee. I die and die and die again to draw ever closer to thee. We will find each other and make better lives. I swear, I swear, and I will not swear to a promise I cannot keep. Seek me out, love, and I will give thee rest.”

He heard the others enter the room but did not look to them. Instead, he pressed his forehead to the glass and wrapped his good arm as well as he might around the container, as though to hold the Khan entombed within.

The Khan in Sherlock’s body rested his hand on Richard’s head to comfort him. He stroked the short hair and spoke softly. ‘Do not grieve over this Khan, my Richard. He is dead, or will be. As your bones lie, no longer abhorred, in the cathedral in Leicester, this body here is no longer mine. The flesh and bones we once wore do not belong to us now. Instead, we are John and Sherlock, and we love each other, and have each other still.’

Richard, weeping, would not be consoled. He stroked the glass with his fingers and brushed his cheek against it, wishing for those caresses to be felt by the one asleep within.

‘This body is the first that e’er embraced my deformed Richard-self,’ he tried to explain, ‘This heart the first that ever gave my heart a home. This dear mouth that draws no breath, the first to ever speak to me of love, to ever touch my own with tenderness. This Khan who lies here, undying-dead, is the first Khan who taught me how to love.’

The Khan in Sherlock’s body folded down beside his Richard in John’s body and enveloped him. Arms around that smaller figure, torso pressed to that hunched back, he held him, and kissed his neck, and his cheek. ‘Hush, love, hush. I know tis difficult to bear. But I am here. We are here and we are together, Richard. Turn from that tomb. That Khan is dead and dust to us already. Please, love. Please my prince. My heart. Please. Please, do not grieve for me. I am here. I am here.’

And finally, Richard turned in the small space and clung to the now-Khan, and wept against that chest, that neck, that most noble man, who held him close and murmured endearments and rocked him, until the mourning was done.

‘I want to go home,’ said Richard. ‘May we go home now?’

‘We may. Of course we may.’ Khan turned his face, full of solemnity and entreaty to Kirk.

‘Lieutenant Commander Scott has been working on Zenobia’s quantum machine,’ said Spock, ‘I believe it will be ready to send you home soon, once we return to an Earth-centric orbit, and the two of you have been restored to your… contemporary selves.’

Richard lifted his head. ‘I would ask one thing, if it be possible.’

‘What is it?’ Kirk replied.

‘I would send my Khan towards his destiny with a kiss.’

Neither Spock nor Kirk moved. It was McCoy who carefully unlocked the clear shield. ‘Be quick. This won’t wake him up, but it’s not good for him to have it open for long.’

Khan-in-Sherlock helped to steady Richard as he leaned into the open container and pressed his lips to Khan’s forehead, and then his cheeks, and then his mouth, so cold and unresponsive.

He whispered soft into deathlike Khan’s ear: ‘Dream of me, beloved. Endure what must be endured, and then fly to me, through time and lives, as I likewise meet my doom in those long dead days, and fly to you, my arms held wide to catch you and hold you close for all other lives to come. I do not sit in humble wait for thee, but run, pell mell, towards thee, as thou to me. Come to me love. Come.’

He stood aside, then, and McCoy closed the capsule.

Then Richard turned to Khan-in-Sherlock, and they held to each other, forehead to forehead, breathing out sorrow and breathing in love and peace, longing for respite.

But while Richard-in-John leaned into Khan-in-Sherlock’s chest, Khan, careful and unseen by Richard or the officers of the Enterprise, stretched his fingers to the command pad of the cryogenic pod and tapped a code into the interface.

Within his mind, his two most conscious selves had decided what to do, when he learned that the pod had not, in fact, malfunctioned.

**_If you do not die in the manner you expect, your soul won’t move on as it should. John will be alone. Richard will be alone. We must not let that happen._ **

_We won’t. Richard and I will evolve and be united. I don’t care what it costs me._

**_It is worth the suffering. I planned to step from that rooftop, if it was the only way to save him. I would endure anything for him._ **

_Yes, as would he for our sakes._

**_We are one_ ** _._

_Yes. And we are masters of our fates. I choose this. I choose you, whom I become. I choose Richard and John._

The commands he had sent to the pod’s control systems would erode those systems slowly. In the months and years to come, the pod would fail. He would wake and go mad. He would suffer and do penance for his crimes, as was necessary, for he would not find his destiny another way. He could not find Richard another way.

The slightest hum issued from the machine, unheeded, and the deed was done.

Then he wrapped his Richard in his arms and kissed him, and they rocked together, finding solace in their breathing bodies.

‘I am weary,’ said Richard at last, ‘I long to let the present be the present, and to dream with you in our glade. These waking times are full of sorrow and our regret and pain, in lives we have already lived, in penance we have already paid. John must be with his Sherlock. Oh, let us dream, love, I beg thee.’

Khan said softly, ‘Aye, love, aye. This weighted grief is done and enough. Let us be John and Sherlock, our now-selves, who have greatness yet to achieve. Let us be who we have become and let the first-known selves of our souls reside in bliss and comfort by the river where we wash us clean of our past deeds.’

‘Yes, love, yes. My moonlit angel, my heart, my reason to live and die and live again.’

‘Oh, Richard, aye, my reason for birth and rebirth. We will take our rest and meet in our dreams, and in these new-living selves find redemption. They say we will do great deeds in our present lives. We will at last be worth the name of champion.’

Holdings hands, the two men faced Captain Kirk.

‘Let Zenobia restore us to our proper selves, right soon,’ said Khan.

‘Or sooner yet,’ said Richard.

‘Sure,’ said Kirk, ‘And then we’ll get you home.’


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Khan and Richard have lived these lives already, and suffered much. It is time to let their newer selves be dominant once more. What will Zenobia learn from them when she goes to restore their minds – what will she do, and what will she leave undone?

Two weary warriors, once-princes who had ruled with spite and malice, and who had paid in blood, madness and suffering for their considerable sins, stood shoulder to shoulder, arm pressed to arm for strength and solace as they stood before the woman who had once been sibling and queen. Exhaustion and sorrow warped the shapes of their stress-clenched backs, painted shadows and etched furrows in their solemn faces, and drew their bowed heads in lines of eloquent deference to her.

Zenobia considered her brother and his love. ‘This is goodbye, then.’

‘If you will let it be so,’ said Khan in Sherlock’s body, ‘It shall be.’

Zenobia caressed her brother’s cheek. ‘You long for rest.’

‘I do.’

‘You have earned it.’

‘That, I am less sure of. But Richard and I do not belong here. Our souls have travelled far in years and endured much. We have undergone trials and burnt our former selves to ash so that we could become new men. It is time to restore our newer selves to the throne of our reason.’

Zenobia regarded Richard in John’s body, whose visage was still marked with his grief. As was his wont, he lifted his chin and met her gaze unflinchingly, daring any judgement – for he knew himself and would not hide.

‘And you, Richard?’

‘Tis time to leave,’ he said, ‘I would spare my Khan further grief, aye, and myself too. Unless such miseries as we relive would further repay the debt we owe.’

‘Your suffering is for his suffering,’ said Zenobia kindly, ‘And not for your own sake.’

Richard finally looked away, her understanding of his pain hard to bear. He who had once cared nothing for anyone’s agony but his own, now in agonies for another’s sake. He was surely not the same Richard who had destroyed so much his former queen held dear.

While the Enterprise crew and the Betazoid litigation stood sentinel on them, Zenobia reached her hands to Khan’s brow and pressed her long fingers to his skull: and thence her mind sank into his.

Within that dreamlike world, Khan presented as he once had done – his hair swept back and straight, his body sleek and muscular, a warrior bred for physical perfection.

That forbidding expression of old was quite gone, however, and his dream self reached beseechingly for her hand.

‘I have lived this life I now revisit as an echo, and have already endured the dreadful consequences of my actions. I have a new life, a new name, a new purpose. Let me be Sherlock again. Give me peace, sister.’

Her hands caressed his face, but as her mind settled with his, to bring forth his Sherlock-self, she saw in his memory what he had done.

‘Khan! No!’

‘It is done, sister.’

‘Then I will undo it! I will alert the Betazoids to the damage you have unleashed on the pod. I will not let that be your fate.’

‘And yet, it is my fate, and I choose it.’

‘I forbid it!’ Zenobia said, steely in her resolve.

Khan grasped her hands and did what he had never done in life.

He pleaded.

‘I beg of you, Zenobia, do not undo what I have done. This fate of mine must be so, if we are to find peace. And find peace we must. The life that body must now undergo, and the death that comes for me, is utterly necessary and must face no interference. I choose my suffering, for that suffering will lead me to redemption.’

She stared at him, aghast, and searched his gaze for doubt. ‘When you leave, I may do what I like with your pod,’ she protested.

‘You may,’ he conceded, ‘For I cannot stop you. Choose, then, Zenobia. I am in your hands. All of us are in your hands.’

‘It is a terrible choice.’

‘That is what it is to be a leader. Sometimes we must choose between impossible paths. But the deed is done, and I gladly volunteer for the sacrifice. All you must do is let the deed stand.’

This, then, was her second test as a leader of her people. For some decisions are hard to make, and harder to unmake, but she had to learn to choose now not only for her own heart, but for the good of those who relied upon her.

‘I will… have your pod taken to a separate place,’ she said at last, ‘It will be held under strictest guard. I will not fall to temptation. This is a courageous thing you choose.’

Khan’s smile was small yet full of relief. ‘It takes less courage than you think, for I already know the outcome. I have endured it once already, and for all that it is more terrible than you can imagine, the prize is more wonderful than you can conceive. I will find my Richard, and together we will find you, Zenobia – or rather, you will find us – and thus you will lead our family to peace and freedom. What courage is there in running towards such hope, as fast as I may, whether through hellfire or no?’

‘Courage enough, for you do not choose to avoid it, to unknow your torment. It could be undone…’

‘But my greater reward will also be undone. Not only Richard, but this time here, in which our family have the chance to be truly free at last.’

‘Then I will not keep you from it, or him, or this better destiny we strive for.’

‘Do not let Richard know I have chosen this, when you restore him to his John self. I would not give him further sorrow, when he knows what awaits me in that chamber, and all the horror there.’

‘Your secret is safe, and your life in this time is forfeit. But the life to come, brother, which you live now… that is a good thing. I am so glad I was granted the gift of seeing it. Of seeing you with him. He loves you so well, Khan. As you love him.’

‘I heard him, I think. When he whispered his goodbye and kissed my un-lifed self. He gave me hope enough to lead me to him.’

‘Good,’ she said. Then she kissed Khan on the mouth, a sister’s kiss, a benediction.

And when she drew away, Sherlock Holmes stood before her, his pale eyes like her brother’s, yet he was not her brother.

Sherlock blinked and shook his head, and turned to Captain Kirk. ‘I sincerely hope you’ve arrested the guard.’

‘The…?’

‘The dark-haired one escorting Aroya to your ship.’ At their expressions, he scowled at them. ‘I may not have been the dominant personality, but I have been paying attention, and you surely can’t think Aroya was in it alone. Why should Zenobia be awakened while Aroya was taking her blood? She murdered three other people very effectively without doing so. Don’t be ridiculous. The guard was in it with her, and he’s the one who set up Zenobia’s revival, for much the same reason he led Aroya past us on the way to the ship. He hoped to ignite violence, and create a triggering pretext for destroying every one of Khan’s siblings.’

‘We were aware that Aroya had such assistance, and arrested both guards until we could ascertain which was the guilty party’ said Spock, full of curiosity, ‘How did you know which of them it was?’

Sherlock shrugged. ‘When you were all watching Zenobia and Aroya, I was watching the people who had brought her so unwisely past our little group. While everyone else was terrified and reaching for arms, the dark-haired guard was smiling. Rather hopefully.’

Kirk tapped the communicator on his chest and gave orders for the innocent of the two gaurds they had held to be freed, while the other was charged with conspiracy.

Sherlock had turned to find Richard grinning at him. The body was John’s, and the grin very like his, but there was no mistaking who had dominance of mind.

‘Thou art a shining star, whichever life you live,’ said Richard, voice thrumming with adoration, ‘Thou art radiant and quicksilver sharp, as Khan or as Sherlock.’ But his eyes glittered now with unshed tears. ‘Is he at rest? My Khan?’

‘He is,’ said Sherlock.

‘Then let me join him there in our glade, and let my newer self be with you here, and thus return to the natural course of our lives.’

Sherlock kissed Richard’s brow. ‘Yes,’ he breathed.

Ricahrd turned to Zenobia and she laid her hands upon his face, and in moments her mind and his were in conversation. Echoes of Elizabeth and Mycroft flowed around Zenobia’s edges, their voices a harmonious undercurrent to hers.

‘Richard,’ they said.

‘My lady,’ he replied, voice full of defeat and self-reproach, “I cannot protect Khan, your brother, as I swore to.’

And Zenobia, who would have shielded her kin if only she could, and knew that she had to choose otherwise, understood this grief too well.

‘Sometimes,’ she said softly ‘We cannot be either shield to him, nor the weapon to fight for him. Here he is his own enemy and own defender. The best we can do for him is to stand by him and for him, which you will do and have done.  You are not forsworn, Richard.’

Richard swallowed hard and could not reply.

Elizabeth Woodville rose to the fore, and she looked upon him without venom. ‘You prove yourself a true man, Richard, and a true friend. You are forgiven.’

And she (and Zenobia and Mycroft) forgiving-kissed his mouth in benediction, and John opened his eyes.  

John's expression as he looked at Sherlock was full of hope, full of joyful release.

'Everything's going to be all right, Sherlock,' he promised.

Sherlock nodded and caressed John's tear-damp cheek. 'Yes, John. It is.'

*


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With healing words and hope for the future, Richard and Khan have been sent back to the dreamworld and their glade. Their current selves, John and Sherlock, are out of sorts as well as out of time, but in the friendly cage of their shipboard room, they will find their centres again, and with each other of course. And then, while they sleep, Khan and Richard, too, find balance and heartfelt joy - and Richard learns a final secret of Khan's. What's in a name? More than its owner ever dreamed of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a rimming scene, so Atlinmerrick has probably already sensed it and is waiting nearby to bear witness to the joys of intimate outdoor sex. But the little thing with Khan's name was prompted by her. I'd always had notions about Khan's full name, and her comment made me decide to put those musings, and her idea, here. I hope she (and you) like it.

Despite Sherlock’s vigorous protestations – and three separate attempts to escape from their escort so that he could explore the fascinating technology of this ship – he and John were soon delivered to their quarters. The room had been assigned earlier in the journey, but between time spent in the medical bay and that on Echo Station, this was the first that either man had seen in it.

Physical and emotional exhaustion vied with the restlessness of unsatisfied curiosity and general perturbation. Perhaps Khan and Richard had found their peace, but it eluded Sherlock and John.

Sherlock paced their Spartan quarters with unconcealed irritation. Almost every scrap of loose technology had been removed, and that which was permanently fixed could not be prised open with anything to hand. Periodically, Sherlock would stop at the dispenser unit he had been shown and demand a range of things from it. In turn it delivered to him hot black coffee, a cheese sandwich, two pairs of socks, a news print-out that had been censored to simply the stardate and a review of a gigantic dancework performed in front of a nebula with dancers inside enormous robotic structures, and a plastic knife in place of the steel one he had demanded.

John was not a pacer. Instead, he sat at a viewscreen which showed him the ever-changing starfield, minus the Doppler effects, that lay beyond the metal skin of the Enterprise. When he had determined that he found it more unsettling than curious, he explored the practical opportunities of the quarters. A bed. Bedside cupboard and lights. A dispenser unit for refreshments and necessities that Sherlock was monopolising. To one side, a sliding door that led to a bathroom.

Shifts across time and space, and travel inside a spacecraft independent of hours defined by a sun’s rotation, meant he did not know the last time he had slept, nor showered. No towels awaited them, and no silver handles indicated the operation of the shower cubicle. He was forced to step inside the cubicle, muttering to himself, to investigate further.

Sherlock, still pacing fractiously, heard John muttering without paying much attention, until the squawk, and:

‘Off. _Off. Shower **off** , fuck it_!’

Sherlock’s pacing took him straight to the _en suite_ door, and from there he could see John, hair wet and plastered to his face, his clothes soaked through too.

John met his gaze with an expression of mighty longsuffering.

‘Turns out it’s voice activated,’ he said grimly.

Sherlock stared at John.

John stared at Sherlock.

They both began to giggle, then to laugh outright, almost helplessly. John spread his hands wide, displaying his bedraggled self.

‘Here we are. In a spaceship. Flying through space,’ he said, stepping out of the cubicle.

‘In the future,’ added Sherlock, for clarity, stepping into the bathroom.

‘Right.  And they've locked us in so we can’t find out the details of the thing we did to save the world. In case we get stupid and change history.’

They met in the middle of the room.

‘Not forgetting that we have somehow been vehicles for our former incarnations to complete unfinished business.’ Sherlock reached for John and began to unbutton his wet shirt.

‘And I can't work out how to operate the fucking shower.’ John toed off his damp shoes.

‘I confess,’ said Sherlock, ‘I couldn't either. So well done on that, at least.’ He peeled John’s shirt from his shoulders and began to unbuckle the belt of John’s jeans.

‘It's bonkers.’ John began to unbutton Sherlock’s shirt too.

‘Utterly.’

Sherlock kissed John as John wound his arms around Sherlock’s shoulders, and then, between kisses, they finished stripping one another and manoeuvred back into the shower cubicle.

‘Shower on,’ said John, in demonstration of his new understanding of the operation of the plumbing.

‘Water at forty two degrees Celcius,’ added Sherlock, ‘God, where do they hide the soap in this thing?’

‘Bugger the soap,’ murmured John, busy running wet hands over Sherlock’s wet limbs and torso, over his rump and hips. Sherlock, who’d had thoughts combining buggering and soap, abandoned the issue in favour of returning warm, wet attentions to John.

They kissed, they bit, they licked and mouthed. They rubbed and frotted and moaned; whispered their now-names and breathless curses. _Fuck. Yes. Like that. God. Christ. Yes._ Anxiety and exhaustion and the fretful disconnection from being out of time, out of place, out of their own conscious selves for a while, replaced now with the surety of _he is here_ and _we are together still_ and _all is well when you are well and with me_.

Sensuous-rough, demanding-tender, Sherlock and John reconnected with each other and their own selves, and finally arched together under the streaming water, spending passion against beloved, remembered skin. They stood after in the flow, letting it wash them clean as they kissed and nuzzled.

Sherlock, nosing at John’s ear, voiced a thought that had puzzled him, ever since John had returned to dominance of his own body. ‘Why did you say everything was going to be all right?’

John burrowed his fingers into Sherlock’s wet curls, stroking his scalp. ‘I don't really know. I can’t remember. Zenobia left me - left Richard I think - with a great sense of wellbeing. Like a huge burden had been lifted from him.’ He bit Sherlock’s earlobe, and sucked it. ‘Why did you agree with me that it would be?’ 

Sherlock breathed out slowly, and wrapped his arms more tightly around John, to bring their bodies closer together. ‘I think because Khan felt... likewise unburdened. Despite everything, and through the most bizarre of coincidences, he has finally done the one thing that mattered to him, besides finding Richard. He found hope that his family might have a future.’

John nodded at the logic and wisdom of that. He commanded, ‘Shower, off,’ and Sherlock experimented with commands until ‘dry’ produced a blast of warm air at optimal temperature to evaporate the moisture from their skin and hair. That it should work was a surprise, however, and John gave a shout of alarm just as Sherlock, startled, danced aside from the sudden gust of warm air whooshing across his buttocks, and after a moment of pretence that neither had done any such thing, they admitted to their folly with snorting, giggling laughter once more.

Naked, they returned to their room. Sherlock paused beside the dispenser unit and with an air of sublime confidence, requested that it deliver lube. The female voice offered him a choice of lubes, and Sherlock immediately asked for one of each type. John laughed.

‘You have very high expectations of my stamina.’

‘Or of mine,’ said Sherlock, smirking, ‘But I am informed it’s another twelve hours to return to our starting point, and the optimal location for the attempt to send us home. Since they won’t let me look at the ship, I’m sure we can find another way to fill the time.’

‘I’m sure we can.’ John grinned.

Sherlock shoved the eleven containers of lube – variations on water-based, oil-based, silicone-based, other-stuff-based, scented, flavoured and sparkling – onto the bedside table. He and John clambered under the covers of a bed that offered no futuristic surprises, except for the way the mattress conformed itself to their shapes once they’d settled.

They kissed lazily, heat rising at first, and then banking back into a steady, unhurried togetherness. Close-wrapped in each other’s arms, legs entwined, and breaths too, they succumbed to companionable lassitude instead of lust.

‘I know we're destined souls and all that,’ said John in sleepy-earnest, ‘But when I’m _me_ , it's _you_ I want.’

‘Yes,’ Sherlock murmured in reply, because for all that they were connected, John and Richard were no more the same person than were he and Khan. Their souls might be one, but their minds were distinct. ‘And it’s you _I_ want. It’s _you_ I love.’

‘I love you, too,’ John mumbled back.

At last, content and filled with a sense that all was well, that all would _be_ well, whatever the present, whatever the future, they let exhaustion overtake them, and they slept.

*

Khan, naked, came sprinting out from among the trees - elbows pistoning close to his sides, bare feet kissing the grass for mere seconds before lifting. Powerful muscles in his calves and thighs and buttocks propelled him between the tall and shady elms and oaks; the taut muscles of his chest and arms and back glistening, like the rest of him, with perspiration. Nearly at his goal now, he spurred his stinging muscles to a final effort. 

From out of the trees near the brook, Richard sprang. Naked, like Khan, but not so exhausted by effort, he held his blasted arm close to his body with the hale limb and ran to intercept his love. Twisted back and all, he darted across the grass and clover, sprang upon the rock by the brook in three swift bounds, and launched himself from that warm stone at his Khan. He flung his good arm about Khan’s shoulders, his chest colliding close with Khan’s torso, almost winding him. His legs wound instantly about Khan’s waist and hips, and with a triumphant roar, Richard thus toppled both of them into the clear, babbling stream. 

Below the water they vanished, and the rippling flow washed away the foam of their vanishing - until there! Erupting from the river - like sea creatures frolicking through the ceiling of the deep ocean to break into the sky - Khan and Richard, wrapped together, rocketed upward, spitting water in plumes of spray.

And then Khan laughed uproariously, holding tight to Richard who sniggered with utter delight and sucked blooming red bruises onto Khan’s throat and shoulder.

‘I have won and you must pay,’ Richard declaimed, and sucked now at Khan’s hardened nipples. Khan arched into the rough loving bite of him.

‘The wager was that you would catch me _before_ I entered the stream.’

‘And I caught thee, though the margin was bare, I will grant thee.’

Khan laughed again and shifted so that Richard might bite and suck and kiss his throat again, and his ear. Richard’s legs were wound tight around his hips, and their surging pricks rubbed slick together under the flowing water.

‘That you did. Then state your will, my Duke of Gloucester. What is the consequence of my lost wager?’

Richard stood in the stream and patted Khan on the diaphragm. ‘To the banks we go, where I shall devise punishments to take the teasing humour out of thee.’ As Khan, grinning, walked ahead of him, his naked body rising from the water which streamed down his planes and curves. Richard, unable to resist, slapped Khan’s behind a stinging blow, and again, for the pleasure of seeing the flesh move so enticingly.

Khan only undulated his hips voluptuously, so that his Richard was induced to slap him a third time, and then he turned to face his love.

‘As per the terms of our bet, I will do as you command, my noble Gloucester.’

‘On your knees, then,’ commanded Richard, steely voice at merry odds with the sparkling humour of his eyes.

Khan turned his back to Richard and dropped instantly to his knees, and then to his hands, and he waited, patient and exhilarated, for the next command.

No command came. Instead, he felt Richard’s hand on the plump of his left cheek, and his love’s rough thumb caress and then part his cheeks, and expose his puckered skin to the cool and pleasant air. Khan tried to be patient then, and failed, and so grunted his impatient plea. Richard stroked his soft and hidden skin with his thumb, and laughed throatily, and then bent to exact his pleasure.

Richard’s pleasure was to lick and kiss and nuzzle at the delicate, sensitive skin. His pleasure was to burrow his bearded face into that warm fold and employ every sensuous motion of mouth and lip and tongue to encourage cries from his beloved. He rubbed his cheeks against the mounds of pale flesh and said, ‘I must hear thee, Khan. Let me hear thee and spare not thy dignity nor blushes, for to hear your voice in ecstasy is my dearest wish.’

Khan, with full heart and body burning with desire, fulfilled his Richard’s wish with throaty groans, gruff panting and inarticulate yet joyful cries of pleasure, while Richard plied Khan’s bounty with insistent, tender, vigorous, yearning attention, with beard and mouth and fingers.

When Khan, trembling from want, spread his knees wider, Richard dipped to suckle carefully at Khan’s balls, then lick his hard and aching prick.

‘Oh love, Richard. Please. Please. I…I… I… will you… I want…’ Khan lost the meaning of words while his body bowed and strained towards Richard. ‘Please. Pleeease. Your hand. Oh, pleeeease.’

Richard held his ministrations long enough to reach between Khan’s legs for Khan’s questing hand, and into it he placed his own withered and unmoving limb. With a cry of both relief and joy, Khan brought Richard’s hand up against his aching shaft and pressed it there, and moved, so that he in equal parts pleasured his prick against Richard’s palm and fingers, and also pleasured Richard’s still yet sensing palm and fingers with the heat of his cock.

Richard bent to lick and suck and thrust his tongue into Khan’s body, and to nuzzle his beard against Khan’s most secret skin, and to hum happily against that so-sensitive and responsive flesh, while Khan curled his back and hips, his hole and his shaft, between Richard’s mouth and Richard’s hand until, with full-throated cries and an ecstatic shudder that travelled from tongue-tip to toes, he spent himself most freely upon Richard’s hand, his own belly and the ground beneath them.

Richard slowed but did not cease in his attentions until Khan, breathless with satiety and laughter, begged that he would. Richard stroked Khan’s backside, still thrust in the air, and his flanks.

‘Tis a goodly wager,’ he said, heedless of the dampness of his beard and the stickiness of his fingers, ‘When he that loses shall also win.’

‘Aye,’ panted Khan, and he swayed his hips a little. ‘And yet, you are the victor. Come, my Duke of Gloucester, and mount me.’

‘Nay,’ said Richard, and lightly smacked the bare and offered skin, ‘I shall mount thee, and then come.’

They snickered together at the bawdy humour, and then Richard took his own stiff prick in hand and pushed it between Khan’s rounded cheeks to rub the slippery crown of it against Khan’s entrance.

Khan manoeuvred so that his shoulder and forehead kept him in this willing-vulnerable pose, and used his own two hands to spread himself. Richard gathered Khan’s spent seed in one hand, used it with his fingers to ease entry to that strong body, and then took his prick in hand again and guided himself to that gate of heaven.

‘Let me hear you,’ Khan urged breathlessly, ‘Lord of my body, prince of my heart, I want to hear you.’

And Richard likewise obliged his angel, with wanton groans and grunting cries and moans of purest joy. Richard held to Khan’s hip and with great restraint joined their two bodies with slow delight, until the timeless, exquisite pleasure of so leisurely a joining drove him near to babbling madness, and then he thrust hard and fast, crying out his carnal delight. Khan braced himself hard and thrust likewise back onto Richard’s impaling prick, driving him deeper. The slap of their skin together added to the lusty symphony of Richard’s voice, and Khan’s, until Richard shouted the completion of his joy.

Khan, relishing the ache and sweet smear of Richard’s lascivious pleasure between his legs, shifted carefully so that breathless Richard lay beside him, the fragrant grasses of their glade a welcoming bed to them both. Khan leaned over Richard and they kissed. Richard giggled in the midst of the kiss, so chaste it seemed by comparison with their lovemaking. Khan smiled and kissed him again, and leaned across Richard’s body to pluck the stems of tiny flowers from the grass. Richard felt the press of Khan’s strong body on him and closed his eyes, petting that adored frame with his good hand. He opened his eyes again only when he felt Khan threading the little white flowers into his beard.

‘You garland me with meadowsweet,’ he said with happy satisfaction.

‘It is our ritual now, on the best of days, to thus be ornamented,’ said Khan, tucking tiny chamomile flowers among the daisies, and yellow cowslips and red campion too. ‘You taught me that yourself, at Christmas.’

‘Aye,’ agreed Richard, and he took some of the flowers and threaded them through Khan’s black hair, ‘For thee, love, on this happiest of days. For I am forgiven. And you, spirit of my heart, who suffered in body and mind such torments, are likewise at ease.’ Richard kissed Khan’s nose, and pushed a cowslip bloom behind Khan’s ear.

Khan kissed Richard’s fingers in thanks for the blessing. ‘My life’s work to free my brethren from slavery, which became a cruel madness and my ruin, is now delivered into my sister’s hands, and I have hope. Zenobia will save them. She is better fitted for such a task then ever I was.’

‘You gave her that power, beloved, or at least the knowledge that she held it, which she did not know before. She has the wisdom, compassion and cunning of all she has been – Mycroft and Elizabeth and Zenobia and all her other selves – to bring to that noble undertaking. She cannot help but succeed.’

Khan kissed his Richard’s mouth full and soft, his tongue tasting Richard’s words, before he kissed Richard’s brow. ‘I believe you have the right of it.’

For a time they lay there together, adorning one another with wildflowers, those blooms both fragile and hardy, which Khan had called the symbol of their love. A wildflower garden, he had told Zenobia, the seeds planted and nurtured in the ashes of his heart by Richard, for whom he had likewise been a tender gardener.

When they were drowsing with contentment, Khan nuzzled Richard’s ear and confessed for the first time: ‘Khan is not the name I was first given.’

Richard blinked and considered whether such a truth mattered. It did not, excepting that his Khan wished to speak of it.

‘What was your first name then, beloved, for all your names are precious to me.’

‘Tis better shown than spoken,’ said Khan. So saying, they sat together and Khan selected a stone. Against the rock by the river, he scratched the name that he had once cursed.

_S1/V6-H_

Richard ran his fingers over the marks. He cocked his head.

‘It is my batch number,’ said Khan, ‘A code for my cells and the vat in which they were made to combine. No other from Series 1, Vat 6 survived but me. I was the first, and the last, of that hatching.’

‘Then I bless it,’ said Richard, ‘For these cold numbers brought you, warm and perfect, into the world, and so to me.’

Khan smiled softly and took Richard’s hand. ‘My maker called me Singh, a parody of my assigned batch. It was a kind of joke to him. It is a holy name that belonged to other people, not to me. It was… a visual pun. Although I learned later, it means 'lion'.’

‘For lion-hearted thou be,' agreed Richard. Then he thought on he word.

'Sing,’ repeated Richard, as though he loved the shape of it in his mouth. ‘Why it is a fitting name, for you are a song. You brought music to me, who had none. You brought harmony and symphony to a reedy, tuneless life that knew no music but a beating drum – echo of the beatings I endured from my brothers, and the march of armies and a coming doom. You are lute and harp and tabor and flute to me. I am sorry that this name grieves you.’

Khan gave his Richard a most searching look. ‘It once did so,’ he said, ‘But I think that on this instant you have transformed that grief into a most surprised affection. I had never thought of it as a song before.’

Richard hummed a little, as though it were only natural that Khan should learn the beauty of his own name from Richard.

‘I have another name, I chose for myself,’ said Khan, wonderingly, ‘Though equally, it was a name that gave me grief, yet one I loved made it into something stronger.’ He wrote down “No-one” on the stone. ‘I chose this name when I was thirteen and felt terribly alone, for another batch of our siblings had failed to thrive.’

‘You were a most melancholy child,’ said Richard, but he stroked Khan’s thigh, a caress of sympathy.

‘I was a sulking creature,’ Khan agreed, but he was grinning, the moody sorrow of those days long lifted from his shoulders. ‘Zenobia, younger than I, berated me for my brooding spite, and in her own hand made a name for me. Noonien. I was Noonien Singh for some years, until enough of us survived to make our family group. And then each of us chose a name to reflect the warlike purpose for which we were built. I chose Khan, as my siblings also named themselves for warriors and leaders. And thus, here I am. Khan.’

‘Khan Noonien Singh,’ said Richard, weighing each name. ‘It is a noble name. Regal and yet leavened with the light of sun at the noon zenith, and the sweet strains of a ballad or evensong.’

Khan laughed. ‘My most wonderful Richard, you have, after all this time, wrought new sense out of old pain. Can it be any wonder that I love you so?’

Richard kissed Khan’s cheek. ‘Your birth was in its way no more auspicious than mine, and yet here is your destiny writ. You are music to me. Your voice sings to me, Khan Noonien Singh. You are someone from no-one, as are we all, and your very presence brings such music to me. Sigh, sing, and soft, there is your smile. I will sing your name to thee.’

And Richard, despite protestations on past occasions that he could not do so, sang now, a little warbling carol of those three word - Khan Noonien Singh – until his mood shifted from tender to merry, and he sang instead a love song of old, though he changed the words to please himself and his love better.

_Under the greenwood tree_   
_Who loves to lie with me,_   
_And turn his merry note_   
_Unto the sweet bird's throat,_   
_Come hither, come hither, come hither!_   
_Here shall he see_   
_No enemy_   
_Nor e’en winter and rough weather._

_Who is he, the shining moon_   
_Who loves to lie beside the sun,_   
_Seeking the food he eats,_   
_And pleased with what he gets,_   
_Come hither, come hither, come hither:_   
_Here shall he see_   
_No enemy_   
_Nor e’en winter and rough weather._

He only desisted when Khan wrapped him in his arms and drew him down to the grass once more and, festooned with flowers and their contentment, they kissed and pleased each other until drowsy with their rapture.

High above their glade, the sun and moon and all the stars shone, and the trees and grasses and flowers were fragrant and sweet, and their brook babbled its own merry song of nature - and all was at peace.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is a long and well-enunciated youtube version of [Under the Greenwood Tree ](https://youtu.be/wjnS5sUwhcs), a song from As You Like It. I've edited the version slightly to Richard's better liking.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Sherlock are restored to themselves, but they remain unsettled, out of joint with time and place - except, of course, with each other, and in that connection they find their anchor. They have a few tricks still to teach those people of the future who think they know them so well. And then, at home in Baker Street, they look upon the stars with new eyes.

Five hours of the twelve, Sherlock and John spent in slumber, but dreams steeped both in sweetly loving murmurs and ardent physical expression of passion woke them. Being already rapt in and wrapped around each other, hearts quick and bodies hard, they experimented with the first of their bottles of lube (water-based, scented of summer fields: at odds with their confinement in a small room in a ship hurtling through hyperspace at warp factors unknown to them. Physics and momentum being what they are, they were at once at rest in their strange new bed and also flying through the universe at a speed that almost kept pace with their dizzying desire for one another.)

When Pawel Chekov came to their cabin an hour after that, he seemed not at all discomfited that the famed Sherlock Holmes presented himself dressed in nothing but a sheet, bed-hair and a lazy, smug grin, and somewhat redolent of fields, mint and cocoa.

‘Hello, Mr Holmes! I am Ensign Pawel Chekov. I am a great admirer of your work and methods, as written by Doctor Watson in his many books. My mother used to read them to me when I was little, so I would grow up clever like Sherlock Holmes and brave like Doctor Watson, she told me. Would you and Doctor Watson sign my book, do you think?’ Ensign Chekov offered up the well-preserved and obviously cherished hardback.

Sherlock plucked the book from the lad’s hands and examined it – faux paper pages, made of some textured but artificial material, hard covers likewise counterfeiting the plant-based materials of the past. He read the existing inscription – in Russian, from the ensign’s mother to her son on the occasion of him going off to Starfleet Academy – and sniffed the pages and the binding. Sherlock flicked through the pages, too, glancing at story headings that were already familiar to him from John’s blog posts – terrible puns and prurient highlights of problems long-solved.

He noticed that Pawel was watching him avidly, taking in every expression and action, and cut the mainly fruitless exercise short.

‘Pen,’ he demanded, and accepted Pawel’s own pen with alacrity. Sherlock examined the implement with interest – it contained a combined plant- and mineral-based ink, it seemed, though graphite was not the main ingredient. He licked the nib and thought he could detect soy in it. He found Pawel looking at him with riveted fascination.

‘You can discern forty-seven different types of ink by taste,’ asserted the ensign.

‘Only thirty so far,’ Sherlock admitted, ‘I am cataloguing them now.’

The young man’s speechless excitement became almost painful to witness, so Sherlock signed the book and refused to engage in further conversation.

‘John!’ he shouted, tossing the book back to the lad as an artefact of little further use or interest to him.

John emerged from the bathroom, dressed in a pair of form-fitting grey trousers – his own damp clothes were still drying.

‘An aficionado of pot-boiler fiction for you,’ Sherlock declared, and then he threw himself on the bed and resumed sniffing and taste-testing the lubes not yet deployed for their rightful purpose.

John, bare-chested and barefoot, peered at the book, his mobile face registering both satisfaction and a nameless alarm. ‘So I finally find a publisher for that thing, do I?’

‘For that and all the…’ Pawel stumbled to a halt, realising he had already revealed too much of their future – he was so sure the book was already part of their timeline!

Sherlock spoke to him in what was, to the ensign, a faintly archaic Russian. Pawel replied quickly, relieved to escape from a potentially awkward conversation with the grumpy-looking doctor. John took the pen the lad had offered to him and signed the facing page, still with that ambivalent scowl. Sherlock kept the boy engaged in a sentence or two, before Pawel, concerned perhaps that he was digging a deeper time-paradox hole for himself, seized his book and fled.

‘What was that about?’ John asked after the ensign had left.

‘I asked him what his favourite case was. He says it’s the one about the trained cormorant.’

‘We haven’t done a case with a trained cormorant.’

‘Not yet,’ agreed Sherlock.

John’s ambivalence resolved into irritation. He was unsettled by these people who knew more about him and Sherlock than they would say. It was _invasive_ that these people knew intimate things about them – _they were **life companions**_ – that they didn’t yet know about themselves. He felt _exposed_ , that strangers knew and kept secrets that surely should have been Sherlock’s and his to know.

Sherlock, disliking the disquieting strangeness of it himself, rose from the bed to more closely examine John’s new wardrobe. ‘Did you get that machine to give you underwear as well?’

‘I asked for pants. This is what it gave me.’ John spread his hands, and pushed all the rest of it away, in favour of focusing on those things that were wholly theirs, at least. Him and Sherlock, here and now.

Sherlock, with much the same philosophy, hooked a finger into the waistband of the trousers and pulled it out a little so he could peek down. ‘No pants,’ he confirmed.

‘No.’ John pulled on Sherlock’s sheet until it fell to the floor. ‘Let’s try that lemony lube.’

Sherlock tugged at the waistband to bring John flush against his naked body, and they kissed. John’s arms around him held hard, as though with every muscle of the two strong arms of his now-self, and with every pore of his skin, he could keep Sherlock contained and whole and _present_ , despite the strangeness of the world surrounding them and that older personality who had periodically risen to the surface.

‘It’s all right,’ Sherlock murmured against John’s skin.

‘I know,’ John said, but he only held Sherlock more tightly, more carefully.

‘I’m here,’ said Sherlock.

‘I know. And so am I.’

 _But_ , said the pause after. _But we weren’t us. Sometimes we are not us._

Sherlock, with one hand down John’s grey trousers and cupped over John’s backside to hold him close, and one hand stroking tendrils of John’s hair, bent to suck bruising love into John’s offered throat. He understood too well John’s sudden focus. Every intrusion of this future into their consciousness was a reminder that their “present” was an unexpectedly tenuous thing, its meaning dependent on perspective and context. Yet when they were together, skin on skin, the moment and each other within it was an anchor. They were Sherlock and John, and they breathed and _existed_ , and their hearts beat hard, and whatever world surrounded them, they were real and immediate, as well as evolving and forever.

They were also vocal and assured about their carnal and emotional communion, well served by the lemony lube, which was slippery and delicious.

John was sprawled, face-down on the bed, too happy-sated to move, when the intercom sounded. ‘Don’t answer it,’ he mumbled to Sherlock, ‘They can all sod off.’

‘I want to know when Zenobia is leaving,’ said Sherlock, and answered the summons anyway. He threw a blanket over John’s bare arse and wrapped the sheet around himself again, looking even more smugly debauched than the time before.

Their caller turned out to be the sardonic engineer named Scotty. Scotty also carried a book, though this one was not so pristine as Chekov’s treasured item. Made of similar materials, it was more battered and bore on its cover a photograph of two men who looked like a near-miss cosplay of the _real_ Sherlock Holmes and John Watson.

Then Sherlock’s gaze dropped to take in the engineer’s startling, short companion, who appeared to have been crafted from an oyster shell.

 _More aliens_ , Sherlock thought unhappily. He would never work out how to read them all, the way he could read humans. Scotty, he noticed, was no more fazed by the clear evidence of recent sexual activity and all-but-nudity than the Russian had been. Clearly the future had different social mores about such things. Perhaps if the recently-orgasmed chose to answer doors in their sheets, it was considered poor form to notice it.

‘Keenser wants an autograph,’ said Scotty, looking nowhere but straight at Sherlock’s eyes and jerking a thumb at his short companion, ‘He became quite a fan when we were stuck on Delta Vega together. I used to read them out until he learned enough English to read them for himself, in their original format I mean, instead of translations. He thinks the classic films are rubbish, mind. He’s all about canon.’

Oyster-faced Keenser nodded vigorously.

John, the blanket gathered modestly about his body, had come to stand by Sherlock. Whatever embarrassed protest he had perhaps been about to make about this not being a good time vanished as his gaze was drawn first to the alien, and then to the book Scotty offered to them. John took the book in his hand and frowned deeply at the cover.

‘That looks nothing like me.’ He held the book up to Sherlock to demonstrate the reason for his protest. ‘That’s nothing like me!’

Sherlock peered at the image thus presented. ‘That’s nothing like _either_ of us.’

‘It is a _little_ bit like you,’ said Scotty reasonably.

‘That is never my nose,’ insisted John.

‘It’s almost the only thing they got right,’ said Sherlock, ‘But that is definitely not my hair. And those clothes are ridiculous. There’s that goddamned hat again, for a start.’

‘It’s a bit unexpected,’ observed Scotty drolly, ‘How neither of you look much like we all thought you did.’ He nodded at the cover. ‘Most people think you look like _that_.’

‘Why would people think we look like those wankers?’ John asked, incredulous.

‘It was a very popular series of films,’ said the Scot, as though that explained everything. Keenser shook his head seriously, and the Scot was forced to add, ‘Even though, as Keenser points out, they took a lot of liberties with the text. It’s funny. If we’d realised Khan was the spitting image of Sherlock Holmes when we first met him, it might all have been a bit more horrible and confusing than it already was.’

Keenser tapped John’s hip and pointed at the book. He handed up a pen, and John duly signed the thing. Keenser thrust book and pen at Sherlock. Sherlock signed it absently, preoccupied with studying the little alien.

Keenser and Scotty left before Sherlock realised the presence of the alien had driven the Zenobia question right out of his mind. Deciding that he after all did not care – Zenobia was not his sister, and though she harboured his brother within her soul, that concept was out of step with him now. He was Sherlock, he was with John, and they would return home soon. He’d see Mycroft soon enough, and Khan had already said goodbye to his sister.

He turned to John. ‘What are your thoughts on the lube with the blue glitter in it?’

John grinned and dropped his blanket.

*

The ending of their strange adventure was almost as abrupt as its beginning. Spock sent the message for them to prepare to leave. They showered, dressed and were more than ready to go when the crewman in red collected them and delivered them to the room in which they had first materialised on this ship.

Zenobia was there with Scotty, finalising some details with a contraption they had fitted to the existing controls. Ambassador Troi looked on, apparently well pleased with developments.

Zenobia nodded to her once-and-future brother, and his once-and-always love. ‘Goodbye, Khan.’

‘Sherlock,’ he insisted.

‘Yes,’ she agreed, and then, ‘I’ll not fail,’ she promised.

‘Khan knows that.’

She smiled, satisfied by that answer, and stood aside to let Scotty take command of the controls. Spock stood with them on the transporter platform.

‘Thanks for everything,’ Captain Kirk said with a nod, ‘For everything to come, too.’

A few moments later, in a surge of light, Sherlock and John and their singular escort were standing in the forecourt of St Bart’s hospital, a sky inky with dark clouds above, wet paving stones under their feet. Their arrival was so abrupt that Sherlock mis-stepped on the wet, uneven surface, and he collided with Spock, who fell sideways against John. John planted his feet wide, caught the Enterprise’s First Officer by the elbow and solicitously helped to steady him.

Then both John and Spock were flinching away from the newspaper Sherlock was rattling in both their faces.

‘ _Six days_. And the idiots think we’ve _eloped_.’

John snatched the slightly damp copy of The London Evening Standard ( _still neatly folded down the middle, mostly uncreased, clearly the most recent edition_ ) from Sherlock’s hands and snapped it open to both see and display the front page. It was dated six days beyond the day they had been so rudely snatched away from their own time and planet. The front page contained a picture of Sherlock in that stupid ear hat, with a smaller one of John from his blog, emblazoned with the headline “Boffin and Blogger Still Missing!” A sub-heading offered an explanation. “Secret wedding for the crime solving duo, say close friends.”

‘We’ve been gone six days?’

‘In relative time,’ said Spock, ‘The date of this return being unrelated to the period of time you have spent upon the Enterprise.’

‘Six days out in your calculations,’ said Sherlock acerbicly.

‘The accuracy of this return timeframe is, by all measures, excellent,’ Spock said without a hint of offence, sarcasm or irony, ‘Indeed, we calculated the margin of error at between three days and three years.’

‘Three _years_?’

‘Yes, Doctor Watson. There were many variables to consider. However, Zenobia’s work with Lieutenant Commander Scott has been exceptional. This is not a well-known field of science.’

‘Why don’t you keep it that way,’ said Sherlock, and at Spock’s raised eyebrow he clarified, ‘We don’t really ever want to see you again. Nothing personal.’

‘Of course not,’ agreed Spock equitably, ‘I might say that, without meaning offense, the feeling is very much mutual.’

‘Excellent. Off you go, then.’

‘Indeed.’ Spock raised a hand and made an odd v-shaped salute. ‘Live long and prosper, gentlemen.’ Then he tapped the communicator on his uniform, blue light crackled about him, and he disappeared.

*

Spock was unprepared for Scotty’s sardonically raised eyebrow on his return. He cocked an eyebrow right back at him.

‘I think you’ll find,’ explained Scotty, ‘That you’ve come a cropper to the Heroes of the Trafalgar Resistance’s infamous sleight of hand double act.’

Startled, and trying not to show it, Spock gazed at the unopened bottle of Starfire Red Zinging Sparkle Lubricant jammed into the holster where his phaser should have been. He recalled thinking that the weapon’s familiar weight had diminished momentarily when Sherlock Holmes had fallen against him, but then there had been Doctor Watson’s attentions to set him back on his feet, followed by Holmes flapping newspaper in his face, and by then the weight had corrected itself and Spock had forgotten about it in the discussion that followed.

It was a two-handed trick that had appeared in Doctor Watson’s stories over the years, a demonstration of how well he and the detective worked together. Many critics believed it, like a host of other skills mentioned in the tales, to have been exaggerated. Spock, to his chagrin, knew those critics to be fools.

Spock reported himself for the carelessness, of course. It was typical that the Captain should find the unacceptable situation funny instead of alarming.

*

The measure of how unnerving their recent experiences had been was in the amount of fussing John and Sherlock were willing to endure from Mrs Hudson, who scolded and exclaimed about their sudden and total absence, which had prompted even Mycroft Holmes to come to Baker Street seeking explanations. His worry had made Mrs Hudson worry, and hers had prompted Mycroft to greater concern, until they built up such an atmosphere of concern (while pretending to be unconcerned) that neither had slept well for days. It had been Mycroft’s idea to spread the rumour of a secret wedding.

Mrs Hudson’s disappointment that there had been no secret wedding was perfectly balanced with her rather bad-tempered relief that she had not been excluded from a wedding. At last, however, Mrs Hudson had to be chased from the flat so that the two men could sit in some much-needed peaceful silence.

John flopped into his chair, Sherlock into his – and they sat in centred silence, letting their home settle about their skin again, familiar and fresh at the same time. They breathed in London air and became once more a fixed point in the folds and flow of time.

Their feet met on the carpet between the chairs, shoes pressing companionably against each other. Then they each kicked off their shoes and pressed their stocking feet together.

‘Weren’t you wearing navy blue socks when we left?’ John asked after a moment. ‘And only one pair?’

Sherlock waggled his feet before resuming the gentle stroke of his arches over the top of John’s feet and ankles. ‘I was. I thought these two pairs from that infuriating dispenser might yield something interesting in a fibre analysis.

John nodded. ‘They took away the grey trousers, but I finally got that damned machine to give me underwear, so…’ He shrugged and tugged the waistband of his jeans to indicate his futuristic-fibred pants. ‘In case you need more material for analysis.’

Sherlock grinned at him. ‘I also have…’ he reached into his pockets and dumped a pen and a handful of lube bottles into his lap, ‘Other sources of scientific endeavour. The ink appears to be previously unknown in my researches, and the lube… well, that’s more for recreational purposes.’

John laughed and drew the pen he’d ‘forgotten’ to give back to Scotty from his breast pocket. ‘You did seem quite interested in the pens. And what was it you got from Spock when you fell on him? It was a bugger keeping him distracted, by the way. Nice job with waving the paper in his face.’

Sherlock grinned and placed the phaser alongside the rest of the booty. ‘We will have to be careful with it. I’ll have to determine how long the charge might last, and if we can recharge it.’

John gave a long, low whistle of approval. Then he burrowed a hand into his jeans pocket and withdrew a small cylinder, which he offered to Sherlock on the palm of his hand. ‘And there’s this. The synaptic sedative McCoy treated you with when they took us on board.’

Sherlock, grinning with unbridled adoration at John, held the instrument between forefinger and thumb. ‘How…? Oh, of course. He gave it to you look at, and then Khan told them about Aroya murdering the prisoners in the cryogenic pods, which was a magnificent distraction…’

‘And I forgot to give it back. Yes.’

‘For two days.’

‘Oops.’ John was, naturally, unrepentant. Those future-soldiers, with their secrets and their books he hadn't even written yet, thought they knew Holmes and Watson, but they didn't know a thing.

Sherlock’s grin widened. ‘Have I told you lately that I love you, John Watson?’

‘Not since some time in 2265.’

Sherlock went to his knees on the carpet, placing all their stolen goods on the floor beside them so that he could crawl up close to John and hold his face between his hands. ‘I love you, John Hamish Watson. Madly.’

John stroked Sherlock’s face in turn, and gazed upon him as though Sherlock were the most wondrous thing ever encountered in a vast and wonderful universe. ‘And I love you madly, Sherlock Holmes. And it looks like we’re going to be proper famous.’

‘Heroes of the Blah Blah Blah.’

‘Maybe we’ll save the world after all.’

‘Perhaps with synaptic sedatives.’

‘Or sci fi lube.’

They snorted with laughter over that, and pressed against each other, nibbling, kissing, sucking, and still giggling – at the perfect ludicrousness of their life; and with relief that this particularly ludicrous part of it was over at last; and at the realisation that, after half a day pursuing mutual pleasure while locked away in a spaceship, they yet had energy to expend on demonstrating their passion for one another.

*

As it happened, when the time came, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson became the Heroes of the Trafalgar Resistance with a synaptic sedative, a phaser, and a net made from extraordinarily durable and resolutely non-conductive silicon/graphite particle/artificial spider silk thread which they had unravelled from two pairs of socks and a pair of pants.

The net was used by Sherlock Holmes to entangle and immobilise a mind-controlled Mycroft Holmes. This ploy prevented Mycroft from retaliation or injury when his alien master was rendered temporarily unconscious after John Watson shot him with the last stun charge of the phaser.

The other members of the Trafalgar Resistance – Greg Lestrade and his sergeants, Sally Donovan and Phil Anderson, then kept Mycroft Holmes restrained while Sherlock and John fell upon the alien, Angiran Rasi, with the synaptic sedative, the aim being to break the alien’s telepathic hold on Mycroft and the half dozen security men just then converging upon them. They knocked Rasi out and freed all who had been in thrall to him, but the resulting overdose rendered Rasi – a Betazoid escapee from a deep space prison – comatose.

Angiran Rasi, who had stumbled across Earth two hundred years before Betazoids and Terrans made official contact, had thus been thwarted in his attempt to seize control of the United Kingdom and, by extension, the European Union and thence Russia, via the identified fulcrum of Mycroft Holmes. Rasi had been seeking the resources to repair his damaged ship and so return home, whatever damage might be wrought upon the Earth in the attempt. His schemes were undone by the only two people on Earth who truly understood what this alien was, and who had the tools, however simple, to stop him.

Rasi’s body was held at Baskerville, and he never awoke. After his death, Rasi’s body was sealed in a specially constructed compartment for further study.

But there, at Baskerville, a frightened and chastened Mycroft Holmes – prompted by the still grief-mad soul of a queen bent on protecting everything she loved with every means at her command – planted the seeds of a secret program to develop defenders of the Earth from alien invasion.

And one day, fifty years hence, a young scientist (the latest incarnation of that snarling, grief-ridden reborn queen) would take cells of the younger Holmes, and cells of the deceased alien telepath, and begin the Eugenics program that created mighty warriors and made them slaves, and so set in train a bloody conflict that would take centuries, multiple reincarnations, time travel and more suffering than could be conceived of, to repair.

Yet in due course, the soul of Elizabeth Woodville, so steeped in suffering and loss, which became Mycroft, and then an unwitting progenitor of bloody mayhem, would at last become Zenobia. And Zenobia, the latest incarnation of a lonely man and a queen much wronged, sought at last to protect her family not through violence, armies, manipulation and threats but through trust. She opened her heart and dared it all, so that one day those she loved might be free.

And through her brave, patient and compassionate example, she succeeded.

*

The details of this future were all unknown to Sherlock and John when, mere days after their return, they sat on the rooftop of 221 Baker Street and contemplated the stars.

John sat on the blanket and cushions they had dragged up to this vantage point, and tilted back his head to examine this familiar firmament. He took comfort from the spangle of bright points in a sky inked with thin cloud and infinite black. The unknown constellations and shifting starfields he’d seen from the Enterprise had made his spine crawl with disconnection. But these stars he knew. He knew them from childhood camping trips, from mountaintops and deserts in Iraq and Afghanistan, from many parts of this complex, fragile planet that he would one day be instrumental in protecting.

These stars were the ceiling of his vast and beautiful home, the Earth, and he could name them - for in a life long ago, he had gazed up at the heavens from whence his angel had once appeared, and learned to love them all for his sake.

Stretched out on the blanket, head in John’s lap, Sherlock closed his eyes as John combed the fingers of his right hand through his curls. The soft-hard-soft caress traversed his scalp and down the side of his face to his chest, while John’s left hand petted little circles on his belly.

Then Sherlock opened his eyes to see the stars, and his strange lifelong dread of them had dissolved. They were no longer the place of ruin, where some older part of him failed so utterly that he had actually destroyed everything he loved. The stars contained now the enticing promise of future hope – for the Khan of his older soul as well as for his own life.

_We will be remembered, John and I. We will do great things. Together. Life companions._

_We will be worth the name of champion after all._

‘John.’

‘Hmm?”

‘Teach me the names of the constellations.’

John pointed to the North Star as his starting point, and he spent the night, and many enchanting nights thereafter, naming the sky for his love.

**Author's Note:**

> I forgot to add before - I have some [Star-Crosssed stuff over here. ](http://www.redbubble.com/people/narrelleharris/collections/402314-star-crossed)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] A Necessary End](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4857953) by [aranel_parmadil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aranel_parmadil/pseuds/aranel_parmadil)




End file.
